Put the flour and sugar in a large bowl. If you use dry yeast, add it as well. In case you use fresh yeast, however, you must activate it now: warm up the milk until it is lukewarm (not warmer or the yeast will die!) and crumble the fresh yeast into it. Stir until it's dissolved. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour the yeast milk into it. Cover the bowl and let the yeast activate for about 20 minutes. After that time, the yeast liquid will be bubbly and considerably risen.

Melt the butter and pour it into the bowl. Now add the egg and start kneading the dough, either by hand or with a food processor. Knead for about 5 minutes. The dough is ready when it’s soft and smooth and doesn’t stick to your fingers.

Form the dough into a ball, put it back in the bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel to prevent it from drying out. Let it sit for about 60 minutes in a warm place. The dough is ready when its volume has at least doubled.

Line two to three baking trays with parchment paper or brush them with some butter, lard or tallow so that the geese won’t stick.

Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the yeast dough to about 1 cm (1/2 inch).  Cut out the geese with a cookie cutter, the template or by hand and put them on the baking trays, leaving some space between them as they’ll expand during rising. If you use my template, also cut out one wing per goose.

Brush the wings with egg wash and gently press them onto the geese. Press a raisin into place for the eye.

Now, let the geese sit for another 20 minutes. During that time, the dough will rise again, making the baked pastry all fluffy and soft.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 175°C (350 °F).

After the second rise, lightly brush the geese’s wings with egg wash and sprinkle pearl sugar on them. I prefer to sprinkle just the wings, but you can, of course, sprinkle the whole goose with pearl sugar.

Put the trays in the preheated oven and bake them for 20 minutes until they are golden brown.

When the geese are baked, take them out of the oven and let them cool down. If you like, you can dust them with icing sugar.