[DANSK] Fastelavn, er mit navn... - Fastelavnsboller!



Late to the party? Who me? Noooo. But. To my excuse, Fastelavnsboller is not something we eat on a special day here in Denmark, but on any day around a special time of year - around Fastelavn. Fastelavn is, as far as I can gather just our version of Lent, but also sorta like Halloween - kids dress up, go trick-or-treating and bash up a barrel filled with candy (and in ancient times a cat - you know, to knock evil out of this world or something?! - it's our version of a piñata. But, back to the Fastelavnsboller - they take over after all of the Christmas goodies disappear from the shops, are here until the bakers seem to run out of them and then we don't see them until next year.

There are actually two (or more) versions: a cream filled one, like this one, and a more eat-on-the-go version which is more like a Danish (or wienerbrød, as we would call it here) I never tried making these before, but surely had my share of them when I worked at a bakery as a teenager. And not to toot my own horn, but these are TONS better! Heh! It's a yeasted dough, but you then treat it like you were making puff pastry, rolling it out and putting thin, thin slivers of butter, folding it up, roll it out, another layer of butter, etc., etc. It works a charm. And they go nice and buttery, and who doesn't like nice and buttery?

For other versions, check out Pille's regal looking ones or Dagmar's Marzipan-filled version.

Fastelavnsboller - from Camilla Plum's Dejligt
15 g. fresh yeast
200 ml. milk, lukewarm
500 g. all-purpose flour
100 g. sugar
zest of one lemon
1 tsp. ground cardamom (original recipe calls for 2, but I think that's just a tad overwhelming)
2 eggs
175 g. butter, cold, cold, COLD!
1 egg for brushing

Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Add sugar, flour, lemon zest, cardamom and eggs, kneading to make a smooth dough. Leave to prove until double in size - I let my dough prove in the fridge overnight, about 8 hours and it worked a charm.

Roll out the dough very thin - as thin as you can. Now, for the butter/puff pastry-ish method: I froze my butter about an hour before I needed it for this, and then sliced it, ever so thinly on my mandoline. It worked really well. Cover the right two thirds of the rolled out dough, then fold over the last third on top of the middle third, covered in butter. Complete the folding by folding the double layer of dough and butter on top of the last butter-covered third. That made complete sense, didn't it?:-) Continue rolling and foldind until you've used all of the butter. Fold one more time, and roll out to a thickness of about 1 cm. Cut into desired shapes - amount depending on the size (mine were about 5 centimeters in diameter and I made about 40) Brush with beaten egg.

Leave to prove until well risen, about 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 190 Celcius and bake for 10 minutes, more or less. They have to be brown and beautifull on top, and baked all the way through - no worse thing than yeasted, buttery UNbaked dough!

Leave to cool, then cut in half through the middle. Fill with a teaspoonfull of your desired filling and a spoonful of créme (see below). Decorate with the funniest color of icing you can come up with and little piggies, if you have them. Or dust a shower of icing sugar on top or - you know, do what you like!:-)

For the filling:
some really nice jam (I used strawberry - a tart version of something might be nice, too. You could try marzipan, or maybe a dollop of apple compote also?)
Icing sugar for the icing
A nice thick, vanilla-y custard, with a bit of whipped cream folded in - use your favorite recipe or this one here:

4 egg yolks
85 g. sugar
330 ml full-fat milk
25 g. corn starch
250 ml. whipping cream

In your pan, whisk together the egg yolks and the sugar. In a bowl, whisk the cornstarch with a little of the milk, then add this and the rest of the milk to the egg yolk-mixture, whisking again.

Bring to the boil, while continuously whisking. Boil for about 5 minutes, until you have the desired thickness. Leave to cool. You can make the custard up to this step a day or two in advance.

When ready to use the créme, whip the whipping cream until a little harder than soft peaks form. Fold together the whipping cream and the custard.


One little piggy went to market... Two little piggies went to market... Three! little piggies went to market - and ate way too many fastelavnsboller!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hey honey
Thanks for a fantastic day... Didn't eat any dinner that day!
Made your chilli-'jam'. Nice. forgot som of the sugar, but it was ok anyway. I dont have much left now, because i served some guests homemade springrolls. made the chickpea-thing today. Nice. I will do that again. Maybe already tomorrow.
Kisses Kirser
Cathy said…
Gosh those look good! Your little piggies look awfully familiar... did you get those when we visited Little Bitts by any chance?
Mia said…
This is a fascinating version of fastlagsbullar! I've never heard of using the butter-laminating technique on sweet buns before. You don't do the hetvägg/hot milk thing in Denmark?
Cerebrum said…
Hi Kirser! How hyggeligt to see you here!:-) Glad you enjoyed the chili and don't get me started on the chickpeas - they're fast becoming a once-a-week occurence at my place! Keep dropping by!

Hi Cathy! Indeed, they are the ones from Little Bitts - I love them! I'm about to run out of the white cupcake liners (you know, the "nut cups") that we got at that other place - you know, I just may have to come back soon and re-supply my stash!:-)

Hi Deinin! No, I hadn't heard of the hot milk thing before I read it on Nami-Nami - but I see you do it in Finland as well? Btw., thanks for commenting, 'causing me to see your blog - I'll definitely keep stopping by!
Anonymous said…
These look great, Zarah! I made some semla last year--or was it the year before?--and loved them.

I like the variation of using jam or apple compote in the filling, but I'd have to do marzipan too!
Pille said…
Hey - these look very girly-cute! I didn't have any proper fastelavnsboller/vastlakuklid this year, but we found something similar (if 10 times smaller) in a small cafe in Cervinia, so we did celebrate fastelavn/vastlad after all:)
Caty said…
They looks great! And I love your little piggy sprinkle things.
Anonymous said…
Update: was inspired to make a Drømmekage after looking at your picture for several days in a row. Used recipe from Den blå bagebog, roughly same size as yours. Two consenting adults- gone in two days!!! My God, I feel so dirty- in a sticky coconutty way.
Anonymous said…
Oh Zarah, those are way too cute! I didn't even know you could get those tiny piggies, how sweet... I'd love to make them maybe with... little cats? (or is that too predictable? :))

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