Cookfolio

[photo credit: snorski ]

Oliebollen are a Dutch New Years Eve tradition and their origin dates back to Germanic tribes hundreds of years ago. My first memories of eating oliebollen was as a 6yr old in the Australian bush, my Oma & Opa (Granddad & Grandmother) made them on a camping trip! They were of course very different than anything anyone had ever had and it was one of those moments that my Opa always could recall every year.

When we moved to the Netherlands he used to cook them on New Years Eve and be proud to announce each year how many he had made and how fantastic they were. He did make a good oliebol and a nice appel version, although I prefer the basic classic oliebol.

And yes this is one of those recipes that if you would have know years back you would have never gone out and bought oliebollen ever again. Home made oliebollen are just better, nothing beats an oliebol fried in fresh oil. If your up to it check your pantry and whip up a batch for tonight!

Ingredients (makes about 15)
250gr flour
2tsp salt
1/2 egg
200 ml milk lukewarm
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
50gr raisins (can be omitted)
sunflower oil
icing sugar

Method
Sift the flower and salt in a big bowl, make a well and add the egg, milk and yeast and stir. Beat the batter for a couple of minutes with a spoon until, once the batter starts falling off the spoon in pieces then it’s perfect. Rinse the raisins, pat dry and add to the batter. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside for an hour to rise.

Heat oil to about 170 C. To make the oliebollen use 2 spoons dipped in oil to scoop out balls of the batter. Let the batter glide slowly into the oil and fry for about 5 minutes until golden brown. Don’t fry too many at the same time as the temperature will drop. Serve the oliebollen on a plate with poedersuiker (icing sugar )!

[flickr]photo:3827049446[/flickr]

If you have ever been to a Dutch birthday party then chances are high that you have been treated to a slice of Dutch Apple Cake. Even thought the Dutch have a really sweet tooth there really is not that much of a selection at the bakery. They also tend to prefer what they like and not venture into unknown territory.

But then again Dutch Apple Cake is one of the best! Most people take the easy route and head to the bakery or Hema for a good Apple Cake. Others, me too at times, head to the supermarket for a cake mixture. This weekend it was time for some real baking and so I pulled out some books to search for the recipe. My usual move would be a search on Google.com but I was hoping that at least one of my cooking books would provide me with a good recipe.

I was in luck. A couple of flicks through the Margriet Margriet Kook Boek and I had found two recipes that were straight forward and didn’t require an extra trip to the supermarket. I did adapt it by adding a jam glaze, more sugar to the pastry (by mistake) and a tablespoon of cornflour to the apples but I heard no complaints and only praise once the cake was ready to devour. I also loved the cake but as I only had the bigger cake tin it was flat and petit, not at all like the hearty thick big original cake. So that means maybe I will make it again when I get my cake tin back!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the whole reason I made this recipe is because we have about 2 bags of apples from our back yard! Yippe… third year around and the taste is fabulous.

Ingredients
200 gr flour
75 gr castersugar
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
100 gr cold butter or margarine
extra knob of butter
500 gr peeled and sliced(or diced) apples
ground cinnamon

Method
Heat oven to 170ºC. Sift flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the egg yolk and small blocks of butter and crumble the mixture with your hands blending all the ingredients together. Grease the tin with butter and cover the tin with a  thick layer of the pastry dough. Mix apples and cinnamon (I added sugar, we had sour apples) in a bowl, I also added a tablespoon of cornflour. Spread the apple mix over the pastry dough and bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 45-60 mins. Let the cake cool down in the tin before removing it. I glazed the cake while it was still warm with raspberry jam. ‘Eet smakelijk“!