Oliebollen or oil balls…. ;)
I’ve got to warn you… If you make this recipe once, you’re spoiled for the rest of your life and you will never want one of those soggy balls you can buy around the streets when it’s getting close to New Years. it’s a bit of work but definitely worth it!
The recipe if is from Gerrit Jan Groothedde from the blog Eetschrijven, and after I got the tip from Levine who made the recipe before, I knew I had to try it for myself. Cause you see I had never made this famous Dutch treat before. And it was a bit exciting too as I had no idea how it was supposed to look like but nevertheless these are really really good oliebollen (which the best translation would probably be something like fried doughnuts)
Oliebollen
Ingredients
- 1 kg all purpose flour
- 750 ml carbonated water while the original recipe states 750 ml I added quite a bit extra water as the dough seemed too dry. Added about 300 ml extra!
- 50 ml milk only if you're using fresh yeast
- 2 eggs
- 32 g yeast dry or instant yeast. If using fresh yeast you need 80 gr
- 50 g butter
- 30 g sugar
- 15 g salt
- 10 g ground cinnamon
- 2 lemon zest zest of 2 lemons
- 200 g raisins
- 100 g black dried currants
- 150 g sour apples in small cubes
- 2 l sunflower oil for baking the donuts
- Optional
- 100 g other dried fruits
Instructions
- Wash the raisins and currants thoroughly in tepid water and dried very well with a teatowel. Melt the butter on low heat in a small saucepan. If using fresh yeast dissolve in tepid milk.
- Put the flour, salt and the sugar in a large bowl and mix the eggs through. After that slowly add the carbonated water in and keep mixing until all is combined and there are no lumbs. I used a wooden spoon for that as the mixture became too firm to do that with a whisk.
- Add the yeast (or if using fresh; the milk with the yeast), the melted butter, the lemon zest and the cinnamon, mix again and add the currants, raisins and any other fruits you want to ad plus the apple and slowly stir for about 3 minutes with a wooden spoon.
- Put a teatowel over the bowl that has been moistened with handwarm water and put the bowl in a warm spot (next to the radiator for instance) and leave to rise for about an hour.
- In the meantime start letting the oil come to the right temperature (obviously you do not need an hour for that) and make sure the oil is 180 C (356 F) when you're ready to start baking.
- Take your bowl and stir the mixture again with the wooden spoon. It's easiest to drop them into the hot oil with either an icecreamscoop or two regular spoons. Put your scoop into the hot oil for 1 second and then - using the side of your bowl - scoop out a nice round ball. Carefully slide that into the hot oil and add two or three more balls into the oil (depending on the size of your pan). Bake the balls for about 3 minutes each side (turn them over to the other side halfway by using two forks) until golden brown.
- Take them out with a slotted spoon and leave to drain in a collander lined with kitchenpaper.
- Only add icing sugar to the balls shortly before putting them on the table.
- Note
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
