Santa Claus Buns are soft pizza dough balls, stuffed with ham and cheese, perfect to brighten your holiday table and to use as a bread substitute. They are very simple to prepare, very tasty, and very cute. If you don’t have brewer’s yeast, you can replace it with 200 gr. of sourdough, in this case, the rising times will increase significantly.

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Economical
Rest time: 2 Hours
Preparation time: 1 Hour
Portions: 4 Pieces
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsps fresh brewer's yeast
1 1/4 cups water
2 tbsps olive oil
2 tsps fine salt
1 tsp sugar
9 oz cooked ham
9 oz emmenthal (sliced)
as needed olive oil (to brush on Santa Claus)
8 sugar eyes
4 black olives
7 oz spreadable cheese
1 capsule activated charcoal
2 sausages
2 slices prosciutto

Steps

Prepare the starter with 2 tbsps of fresh brewer’s yeast, 1/4 cup of water, a tablespoon of flour taken from that for the dough, a teaspoon of sugar.
Let it sit for a few minutes, until the mixture doubles forming abundant foam.
This way you will have activated the yeast.
Place the flour on a work surface, add the starter, water, oil and start kneading.
Add salt last, continuing to knead.
You should get a smooth dough. Flour the bottom of the bowl, place the dough ball, putting some flour on the surface. Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap, then with a clean tea towel and a blanket.
Let it rise for 2/3 hours (if the environment is particularly warm, less time will be enough).
Let it rise for 2/3 hours (if the environment is particularly warm, less time will be enough).
Divide it into four equal parts, you should get four Santa Claus figures.
From each of these parts, you must obtain a ball of about 3.5 oz, two balls of about 2 oz, 6 balls of about 0.35 oz. Let them rise for another hour, they should almost double in size.
Flatten the 3.5 oz and 2 oz balls with your fingers to form circles, fill each disk with 0.7 oz of cooked ham and 0.7 oz of emmenthal slices. Leave the smallest balls empty.
Close them well by pinching the dough with your fingers so that the filling does not spill out during cooking.
Now form your Santa Clauses. On the baking sheet covered with parchment paper, place a filled 3.5 oz ball as the body, the two 2 oz balls will be the head and hat, while the 6 smaller balls will be arms, legs, pom-pom, and belt (you need to stretch it and make it adhere with a little water to the body).
Brush the surface with olive oil and bake at 350°F for about 25 minutes.
Once baked, let them cool slightly and decorate them. I used sugar eyes, but half a black olive and spreadable cheese would work too. For the nose, I placed half a black olive and decorated the belt by brushing a vegetable charcoal tablet with a moistened brush. Use a little spreadable cheese to attach the pieces.
For the buckle, I used a slice of sausage with a hole in the middle.
I used half a slice of prosciutto to color the hat.
Fill a syringe with spreadable cheese and decorate Santa Claus’s face.
Decorate the beard, pom-pom, and the edge of the hat.
Your delicious buns are ready!