Beaver Balls

What in the world are beaver balls? Well, I didn't know either until very recently. Basically they are round, fried doughnuts - cake like and soft on the inside and crisp on the outside. We made homemade versions - both regular and chocolate. Beaver balls are classically then covered with a sweetened condensed milk drizzle, fresh fruit, fruit coulis, and the signature fruit loops cereal. I cannot explain how this originated or why. They are both the most disgusting ans sugary items and the most delicious and indulgent items. I don't know that I would ever make them again but it was interesting to try them. We used blueberries and cut up strawberries and an amazing raspberry coulis.

Vegan Ollie Bollen

Ollie Bollen are the traditional Dutch doughnuts or 'oil balls' eaten on New Year's Eve. This year, I decided to make a vegan version while my father still made the traditional version. Ollie Bollen really don't need to be non-vegan, many recipes are made with milk instead of water for extra richness, and some have egg, but it isn't necessary, so it wasn't too difficult to find a recipe. 

Vegan Ollie Bollen
170mL warm non-dairy milk (110◦F)
2 teaspoons granulated (white) sugar
1 package (8 grams) quick-rise yeast
2 teaspoons oil
1 1/4 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
splash lemon juice or lemon extract
handful of raisins

Dissolve the sugar in the milk in a medium bowl, then sprinkle the yeast over top. Let stand for ten minutes or so until frothy. Stir in the oil, then gradually mix in the flour to form a sticky dough. Cover the bowl tightly and let rise in a warm place.

Stir in the remaining ingredients. Drop dough by tablespoons into hot oil (375◦F) in a deep fryer. They should begin to turn golden and be crispy, flip them over halfway through cooking. Then immediately drain on paper towels and douse in icing sugar.

The difference between these and regular Ollie Bollen? No discernible difference. The only thing I noticed was the color of them does not become quite as brown, likely due to the lack of egg and milk. However, despite their slightly paler color they still are incredibly crispy. 

Contemporary Ollie Bollen

As I have explained the past few years, Ollie Bollen are a Dutch New Year's Eve tradition - deep-fried oil balls of goodness. Like a rustic Dutch doughnut. My father grew up having these as a child and now makes them for us every year. Traditional Ollie Bollen usually contain raisins or currants. However, my brother has never been much of a raisin fan, and our family likes to mix things up and try new things. We were thinking of all possible combinations we could do with the ingredients we had on hand, considering it was New Year's Eve and no stores would be open.

traditional raisin ollie bollen

In the past, we have done raisin ollie bollen, apple ollie bollen, apple and raisin ollie bollen, mixed candied fruit ollie bollen, plain ollie bollen, and chocolate chip ollie bollen. The results? Raisin ollie bollen are the traditional standard for a good reason. Apple are good, but the apple pieces can become brown and mushy. Mixed candy fruit was really good but really sticky, plain was, well, a little plain, and chocolate chip was delicious but very messy and must be done at the end of the batch because the chocolate chips will melt into the oil.

colorful candy ollie bollen

This year, my brother began thinking of new flavor combinations - how about coconut, cheese, or frosting injected? He settled with candy-coated chocolate pieces (which we figured would not melt quite as easily as chocolate chips). Then he decided on putting chopped cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, without the cream filling. Since the batch already contained the candies, these became candy and cookie ollie bollen. These were apparently quite good as well, though the frying oil was certainly unusable after that batch. And of course, don't forget to coat the cooked ollie bollen in icing sugar!!!

messy cookie ollie bollen

Dutch Doughnuts

Here are the Dutch Ollie Bollen our Dutch family traditionally makes every New Year's Eve. We have been making them for the past four years - ever since we got a deep-fryer. A better explanation of Ollie Bollen can be found in my past two posts: {2011} and {2012}.
We have tried plain Ollie Bollen, apple, raisin, raisin and apple, candied fruit, and chocolate chip. The conclusion? Plain are a bit too plain, apple adds a little moistness and flavor but still lacks a little, raisin are good, apple and raisin are better, candied fruit are good but very sticky, and chocolate chip are delicious but not ideal for doing large batches, as it is also messy. How do you like your Ollie Bollen?

Ollie Bollen 
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 Tablespoons granulated (white) sugar
1 package yeast
1 large egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
raisins and/or diced, peeled apple (1-2 cups total) 
oil for deep-frying
icing sugar for dusting 

In a large bowl, stir together the water and sugar. Sprinkle yeast over top, let stand for ten minutes until frothy. Stir to dissolve. 
Beat in next seven ingredients. Allow dough to rise for an hour and a half until doubled in bulk. 
Heat oil to 375◦F. Drop dough by tablespoon into the oil. Cook until crispy, a few minutes per side. Drain on paper towels then coat in icing sugar. 

Mini Doughnut Cupcakes

These are some miniature chocolate cupcakes I whipped up the other day. I call them doughnut cupcakes because I think they look like doughnuts or doughnut holes - with the small round chocolate base, the vanilla frosting, and the colorful round sprinkles. I was making my signature chocolate cake batter for the exhibition competition, but of course I only need to submit three small pieces. I have tried halving this recipe before, which doesn't seem to work out so well, so I made one round cake and used the rest of the batter to make miniature cupcakes. Then I whipped up a small batch of my vanilla buttercream, and used my large open star tip to pipe a swirl of buttercream on each. Then I sprinkled on some colored sprinkles. Because the buttercream icing had already hardened, and the chocolate cake is very moist and sticky, the sprinkles stuck to the cake and not the icing. I liked this effect, the plain swirl of icing surrounded with sprinkles on a chocolate cake.   

New Year's Ollie Bollen

I know I featured these last year as well, but the occasion for Ollie Bollen only comes around once a year, so I figured I would share them again! Besides, this is only our third year making them, and every year we are improving more and more and discovering different techniques that work better. Just as a brief recap, Ollie Bollen are deep fried Dutch fritters, literally translated as "oil balls", but commonly referred to as Dutch doughnuts. They are traditionally made and enjoyed once a year on New Year's Eve, and any leftovers (which doesn't always happen) are enjoyed for breakfast the next morning with a steaming cup of coffee. Ollie Bollen are best eaten fresh of course, but they do reheat fairly well the next day in the toaster oven. And of course, you cannot have Ollie Bollen that have not been sprinkled (or more commonly, drowned) in a layer of icing sugar.
My father is always the master of the Ollie Bollen dough and deep fryer at our house. This is likely because he grew up in the Dutch household and was already familiar with the process. I believe he uses a recipe that is a combination of a modern recipe we found in one of our breads cookbooks, and his mother's old recipe. Ollie Bollen are okay plain, but they taste better with some chopped apples or raisins and the best with both. We also tried chopped, mixed glazed fruit (leftover from Christmas), which was good but a tad sticky and messy in the deep-fryer. We have even tried adding miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips, but be advised that this turns the oil a little messy, so if you really want chocolate Ollie Bollen, wait until the end of the batch. They are quite tasty though!

Doughnut Muffins

Doughnut Muffins
3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated (white) sugar
2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup evaporated (or fresh) milk
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon  salt
3 cups all-purpose (plain) flour

2 cups grated apple

Topping:
1 cup granulated (white) sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350◦F. Grease muffin cups or line with paper liners.
In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla.
In a separate small bowl, mix the milk and yogurt. 
Add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 cup of the flour to the butter mixture. Stir in half of the milk and yogurt mixture, followed by another cup of flour, the other half of the milk and yogurt mixture, and the remaining cup of flour. Stir in the apple.
Divide batter among muffin cups. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. Roll warm muffin tops into the melted butter, then into the cinnamon sugar mixture until well coated.

These doughnut muffins get their name from the cinnamon sugar coating they are rolled in after being dipped in butter. They are certainly much healthier than doughnuts,as they are baked, not deep fried. They also contain yogurt, which contributes to their moistness. These doughnut muffins are made with grated apple, probably not a very common doughnut choice, but it adds a nice flavor to the muffins. Chocolate or plain or Boston cream muffins might be more reminiscent of doughnuts, especially with a nice glaze and lots of sprinkles! I did not use all of the sugar called for in the topping, I actually only used about half a cup. Then again, I didn't remove the wrappers from my muffins and roll the entire muffin in butter and then cinnamon sugar, I just coated the tops of the muffins. To do this, you need to make sure the muffins are big enough and high enough to coat. I got 18 muffins even though the recipe yields only 12, and they rose nice and high and had a uniform round shape. Coating the entire muffin isn't necessary, but will make the muffins taste more like doughnuts (and will make their sugar and fat contents more similar to that of doughnuts as well).

Ollie-Bollen

Ollie-Bollen are deep-fried Dutch fritters traditionally made on New Year's Eve. There are several different spelling variations of the name, including Olie Bollen, Oliebollen and Oliebol, but they all refer to these delicious Dutch doughnuts. The literal translation of Ollie-Bollen is "oil balls" as they are deep fried. This doesn't make them sound very appealing, but they really are good, and don't turn out very greasy at all. Although they are referred to as doughnuts, Ollie-Bollen are closer in taste and texture to little fritters. They are made from a yeast dough enriched with flour, eggs, milk, salt, and vanilla. They are usually flavored with something too, commonly apples, raisins, citrus zest, or combinations of these; although we have also successfully made plain ones, a bit bland, but nothing a pile of icing sugar can't fix!  Ollie-Bollen  are dropped by teaspoons into hot oil and fried just until crispy and golden. Then they are drained and dunked in as much icing sugar as possible. It isn't considered Ollie-Bollen unless you can inhale icing sugar while biting into a fritter.

My father's family used to always make Ollie-Bollen on New Year's Eve, and we recently began continuing the tradition. The leftovers are commonly eaten for breakfast the next morning with a cup of coffee. Ollie-Bollen are said to have originally been in eaten in the Netherlands by Germanic tribes during the Yule period.

Ollie-Bollen are not particularly difficult to make, but they do take some practice, and you must be familiar with a deep fryer to make them. Although they can be fried in a pot of hot oil on the stove, this can be dangerous and is not recommended. Ollie-Bollen dough also requires some rising time, so plan ahead. You may find some fritters close to Ollie-Bollen in coffee shops, especially in Europe, but homemade are much better. Ollie-Bollen are nice and crisp on the outside and tender and flaky on the inside. They also have a nice flavor and a sweet coating. There is nothing like a fresh Ollie-Bollen on New Year's Eve!