Historical Food Fortnightly #4: Dampfnudeln

[elizabeth_mn]

The Challenge: “Foreign Foods” July 13 - July 26
Make a dish that reflects the historical idea of “foreign” - either foods with a loose connection to foreign lands, named after faraway places, or attributed to foreigners. Real connections to actual foreign countries not necessary!

The Recipe: Mrs. Beeton's Dampfnudeln, or German Puddings. I used my paper copy of the book; google books has only half the recipe available:



The Date/Year and Region: England/Germany 1860s

How Did You Make It: I really, really wanted to take this one on faith and just make it the way it was written without comparing internet notes with others first.

Mrs. Beeton seems to have been particularly vague. How much is "rather more than 1/4 pint?" How much sugar do I "strew over" the pan? How can I "knead" a dough and also "beat" it? - kneading is for dough, beating is for batter. And how do I beat with my hands anyway? Finally, am I really supposed to bake these in a pan while they are completely submerged in milk?

I gave up eventually and googled it. Alas. I found this blog dedicated to cooking from Mrs. Beeton's and read the dampfnudeln entry here. It helped a little just to know that someone had made this work. So I carried on.

My dough did not come out very smooth, no matter how I beat it.



I had to add a little more flour to make them roll nicely into little balls.



I poured a ton of warm milk around them, but I chickened out a little and didn't pour "enough to cover" as the recipe suggested. I didn't have a fire to place them in front of, so I put them on top of a board on the stove while it heated. This is a much warmer place than I usually put dough to rise, but it seemed appropriate.



Risen!



I baked them about 25 min at 400 F (is that "brisk" enough, Mrs. Beeton?).



They look alright, but the bottoms were still soggy from the milk. ICK! Is this an English thing, liking soggy food? I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the English notion of "pudding."



To accompany, I made peach compote, also from Mrs. Beeton.



The peach compote could have been more mashed-up (like jam) for my taste, and not so sweet, but I followed the directions!



Time to Complete: It had to rise a couple times. About 2.5 hours?

Total Cost: Flour, butter, eggs, fresh peaches. . . maybe $10?

How Successful Was It?: I could not get over the soggy bottoms. Every time I got a piece of milk-sogged pastry into my mouth, I shuddered and gagged a little. Uck. But the rest of it was pretty good. A little sweeter than I expected.

How Accurate Is It?: I cooked it in my gas oven instead of a fire, which Mrs. Beeton specifically mentions, but otherwise I followed it as well as I could.

Comments

[starlightmasque.livejournal.com]

YUM!!

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

That looks delicious! But I think I tend to agree that the soggy bottom of the biscuits wouldn't be fun...

[ashamanja-babu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, soggy = icky.

[m-of-disguise.livejournal.com]

Dampfnudeln are big in Germany at Christmas time, you can buy them from street vendors along with hot mulled wine. I absolutely love them, but they look totally different from Mrs. Beeton's version. XP I really want to try this recipe now and see how they compare!

(I accidentally made dampfnudeln once, while trying to make Chinese bao. lol Turned out tasting exactly like what I had in Germany!)

[ashamanja-babu.livejournal.com]

I kind of assumed they would look different from the "real" version. That was why I wanted to make them without looking it up first, so I could just read the recipe and take it on faith, like a woman would have 150 years ago. If I'd known already what they were supposed to look like, it would have altered my ideas and methods.

[anemone-cottage.livejournal.com]

Mrs Beeton seems to have been a little overambitious with the milk. ;)
The milk is supposed to evaporate completely during cooking; this way the dough should not come out soggy, but with a crust (and sticking to the pan like there is no tomorrow).

Baking the dough in milk is more of a Southern German variation, by the way. Up here in the north (and in Austria as well, as far as I know), the dough is steamed over boiling water. No sogginess at all because it doesn't even touch the liquid. There are different names depending on region and preparation, but the dough is the same. You should try steaming them next time, they really are very nice.

For comparison:
baked: http://www.bayerische-spezialitaeten.net/bilder/dampfnudeln.jpg
steamed: http://www.bayerische-spezialitaeten.net/bilder/germknoedel.jpg

I'll shut up now. ;)

[ashamanja-babu.livejournal.com]

Definitely overambitious! I had the idea the milk was supposed to evaporate, but I think it's just way too much milk. I could have left them in a little longer but they looked done.