Schneeballen

Brian hates Christmas. At least he says he does. I don't blame him - I've had bouts where I hated it, and there are still some aspects I could live without. However, there's something magical about Christmas  you can't deny - twinkly lights, sugar highs, and food comas. Since Brian spent a chunk of his childhood in Germany, he got to experience German Christmas. He likes the tradition of Sankt Nikolaus day (December 6th) where you leave your shoes out for Saint Nicholas to fill them. But of course what he loves more is that Saint Nicholas has the Christmas devil, Krampus, with him to cart of bad children to hell (no lumps of coal for bad German kids - you go straight to hell!) He likes that Christmas. Another part of German Christmas he likes is the Christkindl Markt. One story he has is as a child walking around the Christkindl Markt eating Schneeballen and drinking gluhwein. His mother didn't understand why her kids were loaded with sugar, but got really quiet (because she didn't know gluhwein was actually wine). 

This Saint Nicholas Day, I thought I would try to make Schneeballen. I thought it would be easy, but you try finding a Schneeball recipe online! This librarian only found 2 after hours of searching. I went with the one that says it's from an old German Grandmother. Most sites I found kept linking back to that one. 

Schneeballen are a specialty of Rothenburg. They are basically strips of pastry dough, wound up into a ball, and deep fried and covered with powdered sugar (snowballs). They are also covered with icings, and chocolate, and other wonderful looking toppings. I decided I would try the traditional.  They were very hard to keep together in the oil (as the recipe says). In Rothenburg, they have special Schneeballen tongs to make the perfectly uniform balls. I used spaghetti spoon and held it up again the side of the fryer. It worked better to make the schneeballen in about 2 inch diameter as opposed to the near 4 I was trying. The one in the photo was the best looking one.  Most of them were not very pretty, but they were delicious!  A lot like a beignet, but a little more dense. 

Schneeballen
adapted from http://www.kitchenproject.com/german/recipes/Fasching/Schneeballen/index.htm.  

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour (more if needed)

2 egg yolks 

3 Tablespoons butter, softened (this was a guess since the recipe didn't list it, I just went by what the photograph looked like)

2 teaspoon milk 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup sour cream Dash of rum

I used a stand mixer with the dough hook. Use the pictures on the link above to see how to mix it by hand.

Blended the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. 

Add the eggs and mix.

Add butter and mix.

Add sour cream, milk and a dash of rum.

Mix until firm dough ball forms. Cover ball with plastic wrap and chill.

Heat fryer to 350 degrees.

Roll out the dough as you  would make a pie crust. Cut dough into 1/2 inch strips.  

Roll strips into a ball by  twisting and knotting them together.

Using a spoon, ladle or whatever you can find, drop the dough down into the oil. Hold together with the utensil. Fry until golden brown and flip and cook the other side until brown. 

Place on paper towels to drain.  

Heavily dust with powdered sugar.