Fastelavnsboller - cream buns

October 16, 2011

A lovely assortment of fastelavnsboller © kvalifood.com

Recipe with video — There are basically two kinds of fastelavnsboller. The baker’s version made from Danish pastry dough, and the homemade kind made from an enriched bun dough. This recipe is the homemade kind with bun dough. They can be shaped both as round buns and as spandauer-style buns.

Ingredients

the dough

200 g butter
50 g fresh yeast
2 dl milk
50 g sugar (½ dl slightly heaped)
2 eggs
600 g flour
½ tsp ground cardamom

the cream

1/4 l whipping cream
2 eggs
75 g sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch

remonce (only for the spandauer-shaped buns)

50 g sugar
50 g butter
50 g marzipan

the icing

200 g icing sugar
1–2 tbsp cocoa (optional)
water — less is more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N0vIMREVbo

Directions

Start by making the cream, as in this recipe.

If you want to use remonce for spandauer-shaped buns, mix it as in this recipe.

The dough

Leave the butter out at room temperature for at least an hour so it softens.

Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl, flour last.

Knead for about 5 minutes in a stand mixer. Can also be kneaded by hand without much trouble.

The dough should not rise before the buns are shaped.

Shape it into one large ball.

Use a rolling pin to roll it out into a square about 40 cm (16 inches) on each side. Get the corners as sharp as possible.

Cut the sheet of dough into a 4 × 4 grid, giving you 16 squares about 10 cm (4 inches) on each side.

Round buns with cream

Place a dollop of cream in the centre of the square. Bring all four corners together and press them closed. This creates four new small corners — bring those together too. Keep pressing until you have a fully sealed little package.

Turn it seam-side down and place the bun on the baking tray.

Leave them to rise for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Spandauer buns

Place a heaped ½ tbsp of remonce in the centre of the square.

Press the four corners of the dough down into the remonce so they just touch each other.

Press them firmly into the base so they don’t spring back up during baking.

Spoon a heaped tbsp of filling into the hollow you’ve pressed in.

You can use cream or a thick jam. Apricot, orange, and raspberry all work well.

Bake

About 12–15 minutes at 390°F (200°C).

Icing

Mix water into the icing sugar until it reaches a thick, pourable consistency.

Decorate as you like with dark and/or light icing.

Notes

If you forgot to take the butter out in advance, you can melt it in a saucepan as shown in the video. In that case, add all the ingredients except the butter and ⅓ of the flour first, then add the butter, followed by the remaining flour.

This prevents the hot butter from killing the yeast. The more you let the butter cool before adding it to the dough, the better. You can end up with very flat buns if the yeast dies.

This is a pastry dough, so it should not be kneaded too much — but too little kneading means the pastry cream will generate so much steam inside the bun that it bursts open like an overfilled balloon. 5 minutes is a good compromise.

You can make the pastry cream the day before. It is easiest to work with when it is fridge-cold.

When making icing, I like to mix in a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of clear simple syrup instead of water at the end. It makes it harder to thin out too much, gives the icing a bit more shine, and it sets faster.