Mix the flour with the yeast, the salt and 1 cup of water and knead for 10 minutes. Allow the dough to rise for one hour and divide it into 12 round buns. Mix the cream cheese with the sugar and the raisins. Push a whole in the middle of each bun and add 1-2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture. Allow the buns to rise half an hour more. Bake them for 35 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

18 December 1878 was the birth day of Jozef Stalin, the notorious leader of the Soviet Union (died 5 March 1953). His real name was Dzugashvili, Stalin is Russian for steel. Click on culinary calendar for Links between cooking and worldwide history.

Mix the flour with the yeast, the butter, the cinnamon, the salt and the milk and knead for 10 minutes. Allow the dough to rise for one hour. Add the raisins and knead for a few minutes more. Divide the dough into 15 round buns, brush the top with egg and allow these to rise another half hour. Bake the buns at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. Serve them with brown sugar.

On the day before Whitsun the Dutch celebrate Luilak (sluggard), meaning that all sluggards will be woken up by noisy youth around 5 in the morning. The last one awake prepares these buns. Click on culinary calendar for more links between cooking and worldwide events.