ingredients:

For the dough, use your own favourite recipe for a sweet bread dough (or fine bread dough), made with 2 cups of flour.

filling:

Any fruit or dried fruit

Sugar

method:

Prepare dough using a recipe for sweet bread dough or fine bread dough, adding a little butter or margarine. Knead dough, leave it to rise, roll it out thinly, put it in a greased round pan, cover and leave to rise to double its size. Prick through the dough with a fork or knife if it has risen too high.

Prepare filling by cutting fresh fruit into pieces (eg, cut stoned plums into halves). Arrange fruit pieces closely together on the dough with the cut side upwards. Alternatively, fill the pie with stoned cherries or stewed fruit. If using stewed fruit, mix fruit with sugar before filling pie.

Bake pie in hot oven (450°F = 235°C) for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle fruit with sugar 10 minutes before pie is taken out of the oven. Sprinkle with sugar once more when pie is done.

Variation:

Vlaai can also be decorated with a trellis-work of pastry. Use slighty less dough for the base of the vlaai and cover the fruit with a trellis work of pastry strips, approximately 1 cm (½ inch) thick.