Buchteln

They are baked touching in one pan so they stick together and are pulled apart.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (milk).

Ingredients

• 500 g plain flour
• 7 g dried yeast
• 70 g sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 egg yolks
• 250 ml milk, warm
• 60 g butter, melted
• zest of 1 lemon
• 250 g powidl, or thick plum jam
• 80 g butter, melted, for brushing
• icing sugar, to finish

Method

1. THEY ARE BAKED TOUCHING IN ONE PAN SO THEY STICK TOGETHER AND ARE PULLED APART. The article's description is the method: sweet rolls of enriched yeast dough, FILLED WITH POWIDL, JAM, GROUND POPPY SEEDS OR QUARK, BRUSHED WITH BUTTER AND BAKED IN A LARGE PAN SO THAT THEY STICK TOGETHER AND CAN BE PULLED APART.
2. SO THE GAPS ARE THE MISTAKE. Spaced out on a tray they bake into separate buns with a crust all round; packed in touching, the sides stay pale and soft and the whole pan comes out as one piece to be torn up.
3. THE BUTTER GOES ON BEFORE THE OVEN, NOT AFTER. Brushed between and over them, it is what makes the joins give way cleanly instead of tearing.
4. POWIDL IS THE FILLING THE ARTICLE NAMES FIRST, and it is not jam: a thick, barely sweetened plum butter cooked down for hours. Ordinary plum jam is looser and will run out of the seam.
5. THEY WERE ONCE BOILED, which the article records as a nineteenth-century practice -- THEY COULD BE BOILED SIMILAR TO DUMPLINGS -- and that is worth knowing because it explains the dough: it is a dumpling dough that took to the oven.
6. ON THE PLACING, THE ARTICLE IS HONEST AND SO IS THIS PAGE: it puts the buchteln in Bohemia to begin with, and names Austrian, Slovak, Slovenian and Hungarian cooking besides. It sits here because IN BAVARIA BUCHTELN ARE CALLED ROHRNUDELN -- its own name in its own German cooking.
7. MAKE A SOFT, SLACK DOUGH AND PROVE IT WELL. Slacker than you would want for a shaped bun, because these are supported by each other.
8. ROLL SQUARES, SPOON THE FILLING IN, AND SEAL THEM SEAM DOWN. The seam underneath and the smooth side up, or they open in the pan.
9. PACK THEM INTO A BUTTERED DISH WITH NO ROOM BETWEEN, brush the tops, and prove again until they press on each other.
10. A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES FOR THIRTY MINUTES. Served warm, which the article insists on -- SERVED TEPID -- with vanilla sauce or icing sugar.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Germany · All recipes