Oliebollen

Chiko said, "Hi!"

My Mom made some Oliebollen today! Oliebollen, or Oliebol, is a traditional Dutch food. It is made out of water, margarine/butter, flour, and eggs. Mix all those ingredients together and voila! you get yourself some dough. Later on, the dough will be shaped and dipped into hot oil, and your duty is to fry them until they are brown in color. The Oliebollen will then be served with some powdered sugar on top. It is pretty easy to make Oliebollen, the recipe is quite simple and the procedure is not that complicated. Not to mention they are puffy and delicious!

In this post, I shall share the recipe to my Mom's version of Oliebollen. But, do take notes that my Mom didn't use any measuring equipment in the process of making Oliebollen, she went full Jamie Oliver - a glass of this, a pinch of that, and a dash of those. 

Oliebollen

Ingredient:

- A glass of water

- A cup of flour

- A big spoonful of margarine

- A small pack of butter (we used Anchor Butter)

- 3 eggs

- 1 ts of salt

- Half an apple

Garnishing Ingredient:

- Icing Sugar

- Chocolate Syrup (we used Frisian Flag)

How to Make:

- Grab yourself a pan and pour in some water. Heat the water with low fire (don't set the fire too big, or the water will evaporate).

- Wait for a bit until the water is a bit boiled and bubbly, then you put in some margarine, butter, and salt. Melt them and stir well.

Put the margarine into the pan

Put some butter, and a dash of salt as well, and leave them be until they melt a bit

Stir well

- Next, prepare your flour (a cup will suffice).

Make sure you prepare all of the ingredient that you will use

- Put the flour into the pan and stir well until you get that mashed-potato-kind-of look. 

The dough may seems like mashed potato, but the texture is entirely different. This dough right here has a gooey texture, similar to a bugger, but not sticky. It tasted savory because of the butter, but also flavorless.

If your dough starts to form like this, then you're cooking it correctly

See how gooey they look?

- Cut some apple into small pieces and put it into the pan. Stir well. 

Basically, you can put anything you want inside the dough. Either it be chocolate chips, or almonds, you can put them in as you like. In the original recipe, raisins and sultanas are used instead of apple. But, we didn't have any raisins, nor chocolate chips, so my Mom used apples instead.

Cut the apples into small pieces

Put them into the pan

Mix them well

- After you mix the apples and the dough, turn off your stove and let it cool. 

I repeat, LET IT COOL. And by cool, I mean real cool, because you're going to put in some eggs after this. Eggs are heat sensitive, it can easily be cooked if it touches anything with high temperature. We have to make sure the dough is really cool, otherwise the eggs will be fried if we put them inside. 

Let the dough chill

- When you're sure your dough has cool down, crack three eggs and put them into the pan. 

Nice egg-cracking skill, Mom!

Crack those eggs nicely

Ready for the next step

- Mix the eggs and the dough until it forms a baby-food-like substance

Mix them well

If your dough looks like this, then you're cooking it correctly 

- When your dough is ready, it's time to fry them! Grab yourself a frying pan and pour some oil. Heat the oil with low fire (again, don't set the fire too big. You don't want your Oliebollen to be burnt on the outside, yet cold and uncooked on the inside).

If you're not sure whether or not your oil is well-heated, test it by putting in a wee bit of dough into the frying pan. If the dough sizzles, then you're ready to fry them.

Heat your oil

- Scoop the dough with a spoon and put it into the boiling oil.

If you're not comfortable in using your fingers to push the dough to fall from the spoon, you can use another spoon to do so. And, do keep in mind that the dough will expand inside the oil, and they will get puffier, so don't scoop too much of them.

Use your finger to push the dough inside the frying pan

Careful now, the oil is super hot, you don't want to lose a finger

- Fry the dough until they are golden brown in color. Flip them over so that both sides will be evenly cooked. 

As you fry those gooey balls, you may notice the aroma that come out from the dough. They smell like French Toast (a dish where you soak loafs of bread with an egg and then fry them)!

Fry them until they are golden brown in color

Those dough will get puffier as they make contact with hot oil

- When the Oliebollen are well fried, take them out of the frying pan and let them cool.

Nicely fried Oliebollen

Look at those puffy fried dough!

- Next, you shall proceed to the fun part: garnishing! 

Icing sugar are commonly used to garnish Oliebollen. But you can get creative and decorate them with chocolate syrup instead, like I did! You can use whatever foodstuff that you want to use. Strawberry jam, Nutela, ice cream, marshmallow creme, peanut butter, you name it!

Oliebollen are actually deep-fried puff cake. See how they share the same inner part? 

Oliebollen with icing sugar

Chocolate syrup

Oliebollen with chocolate syrup

- Your Oliebollen is ready to be indulged!

It's very easy to make Oliebollen! You can make them for your buddies, for your Grandma and Grandpa, for your neighbor, for the school's headmaster, and even for your dog. These Dutch delights are light and puffy, not to mention savory and tasty. Do you know two things that can make a platter of Oliebollen perfect? A rainy day and a glass of hot cocoa. 

Even Chiko fancies Oliebollen!