10 Feb 2013

Fastelavns boller

In Denmark and the nordic countries we have a tradition called Fastelavn. Originally it was a feast to celebrate the coming of easter, but today it is mostly a children's celebration where the kids dress-up and you eat the fantastic "Fastelavns-boller".  This year we had some friends over and I made the most delicious Fastelavns-boller from Claus Meyer's recipe. If you feel like giving yourself a treat the recipe follows...


Dough:
250 g flour
75 g butter
½ package of yeast
1 dl milk
1 egg
Pinch of salt
15g sugar

Cream:
Vanilla, grains from a ½ vanilla pod (I used the whole pod)
1 egg
15g sugar
2 tbsp. Maizena (cornflour)
2 ½ dl milk
75 g chopped blanched almonds

Remonce:
100 g of sugar,
100 g of marzipan
100 g butter

Chocolate for fillings and coatings:
A bag of dark chocolate buttons, or approx. 100 g good dark chocolate. 6 buttons per bun, 4 as filling and 2 to cover.

Dough:
Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Mix flour and butter in a bowl. Beat the egg with salt and sugar and mix it with milk. Knead the flour mixture and milk mixture well. Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rise for an hour.

Cream:
Split the vanilla pod and scrape out the grains. Beat eggs, sugar, cornflour and vanilla well. Heat the milk to just below boiling point and mix it with the egg mixture. Pour mixture of eggs and milk back into the saucepan and heat while you whisk until the cream thickens. Turn the chopped almonds in the cream and stir to cool.

Remonce:
Stir sugar and marzipan together. Then add butter gradually until it is completely moved out of the mass. Be careful not to stir for too long as it will be too soft when baked.

Knead the dough quickly through and part into two. Roll each piece out to approx. ½ cm thick sheet and cut into 7-8 pieces. In each paragraph, one tbsp. cream, a tbsp. remonce and 4 chocolate buttons. Fold the corners of the dough over the filling and assemble them so it does not run out: first fold the four corners over each other so that they overlap and then gather and pinch together.
Turn the buns so that they face down and let them rise until doubled in size on a greased baking sheet. Brush them with water and bake at 200° for approx. 15 minutes until they are beautifully golden. As soon as they come out place two chocolate buttons on each, so the chocolate can manage to melt a little.

Bon appetit! ❤ Rosa