Zandkoekjes

Zandtaartjes are.. Extremely Dutch cookies. Their name literally translates into 'sandpies'. Because they look like the sandpies you make in the sand pit. You can buy them in the supermarket, or make them at home. However, coming across zandtaartjes tins is not that easy. My mum has a few, but I have been unable to find new ones anywhere. Until I went shopping at the Markthal in Rotterdam (see my post earlier).

With my new tins, of course.. I had to bake. I use a recipe from an old cookbook from my mum (with some adaptions) which has been used so much, it is falling apart and we've had to copy seperate pages.

Ingredients (with my 4cm(bottom)/7cm(top) tins makes about 14)

Flower: 225 grams

Salt: 1 gram (really NO MORE)

Sugar: 112 grams

Butter (COLD): 169 grams

(optional cinnamon to taste or some vanilla sugar)

Mix the flower, salt and sugar together. Cube the butter and add it to the bowl, either use your kitchen machine with the dough hook or quickly kneed with your hands until you get a firm ball. (with your kitchenmachine you may need to kneed the last bit with your hands to create a ball).

Grease your tins (you can use any kind, even a cupcake tin, just make sure you use tins not silicone!!). Fill them with dough for about 80%. Bake in a 160C pre-heated oven for 24-27 minutes (until golden brown). Take out of the oven and leave to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes then gently tap them out and leave them to cool on a rack. 

Bossche Bollen

Bossche Bollen. How to explain them. Basically they are ginormous profiteroles, filled with cream and covered in chocolate. Their origin lies in 's-Herogenbosch, and they are balls so.. Bossche Bollen.

The best Bossche Bollen come from bakery Jan de Groot in 's-Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch). Take the train, walk out of the train station (main entrance), keep walking and after some 150 meters on your right hand is the bakery. These bollen are legendary, they bake gazillions every day. But since I'm hardly in Den Bosch these days (and no one bothers bringing me one..), I decided tobake my own.

The dough is not that hard, it is fairly similar to profiteroles.

Ingredients (makes 3 bollen):

Water: 125 ml

Butter: 45 grams

Flower: 64 grams

Egg: 1egg and 1 egg beaten.

Cube the butter and place it in a small sauce pan together with the water. Over medium heat, melt the butter and bring to a boil. Keep stirring the whole time, use a wooden spoon. Once it boils, take the pan off the heat. Add the flower and keep stirring until you get one dough ball. Add in 1 egg and whisk until incorporated, then keep on adding egg and incorporating it, u til the dough comes off your whisk in long strands (about half the egg).

Heap three balls of dough onto a baking tray covered with baking paper. Put in apre-heated oven (200C) and bake for 25-30 minutes (until they feel light when you pick themup and are nice golden brown). Remove from the oven, gently prick a hole in the bottom using a piping tip and return to the baking tray, bottom side up and return to the oven (make sure the temperature is turned off). Leave the bollen to dry for about 20 minutes. Then remove them from the oven and leave them to cool on a rack. 

In the meanwhile, you can make the filling. I don't like just using whipped cream (and bakery de Groot uses something else as well, not sure what though). So, I made white chocolate mousse. Yes, you read that right.

Ingredients (more than enough for 4 bollen):

White chocolate: 150 grams 

Cream: 250ml

Egg white: 125 ml

Sugar: 75 grams

Melt the white chocolate (au bain marie, in the microwave, whichever you prefer). Leave to cool slightly. Whip the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Whip the crem until stiff. Fold in the chocolate. Gently fold the egg whites into the cream-chocolate mixture. Don't add all the egg white at once but about four portions. When done, place in a piping bag with a regular tip. Place in the refridgerator for about half an hour.

When the bollen are dry and cool, take the piping bag out of the fridge and fill your bollen, use the hole you made earlier. Just keep filling until the filling comes out. Place them upside down (hole up) on a plate and put them in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

You can now make your glaze

Ingredients (enough for 3):

Cream: 50 ml

Dark chocolate: 100 grams

Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a sauce pan together with the cream, on gentle heat melt the chocolate. Be careful to not let the cream boil. Let cool slightly (about 5-10 minutes).

Take your bollen out of the fridge and gently pour the glaze over them. A good cover is required.

Place the bollen back into the fridge to let the glaze set.

ENJOY! (Fair warning, eating Bossche Bollen leads to a mess. The good things in life are always a bit messy, right.. ;-))