Butter Buchtel Buns with Cherries and Vanilla Custard
Fragrant and fluffy! Buchteln are buttery sweet yeast rolls tucked together in a baking pan to keep them juicy. Break the warm buns apart when they are freshly out of the oven and you can enjoy the sweetest smell that yeast dough can possibly create. To get an even better idea of what to expect, imagine brioche, just softer, with a flowery aroma and a sweet filling of juicy cherries. Although this is the prefect Sunday morning breakfast treat, they also make a fantastic, rustic dessert, especially when you serve them with a thick vanilla custard. You can replace the cherries with your favourite jam, curd or poppy seeds, basically with everything that fits to a buttery sweet bun. I used canned fruits stuffed with a little lump of sugar to release their juices, there's no need to wait for their harvest in summer. It worked great! This is the right recipe to pull out all the preserved fruit cans and jars piled up in your pantry, apricots, peaches, plums are great too, just stuff them into your butter buchteln and enjoy their juicy sweetness.
Buchteln have been with me for quite a while, when I went to university I used to go to my favourite bakery at least twice a week to buy a couple of their fabulous plum cinnamon buchteln. I'll never forget the satisfaction I felt with each bite, and even today, after all those years, they still manage put me right back to this comforting feeling.
Buchteln (also known as Ofennudel or Rohrnudel in German) are very popular in Southern German, Austrian, Hungarian, Czech and Slovenian cuisine, several variations on this recipe spread into Polish, Croatian and Serbian baking over the years. However, they remind me a lot of Italian baking, the rich dough is almost yellow, made with lots of butter and eggs refined with orange zest and vanilla, it's as fragrant as a panettone. Simple and pure, yet so satisfying!
Butter Buchtel Buns with Cherries and Vanilla Custard
I used a round 19cm / 7.5" (6cm / 2.5" high) baking dish. The buchteln should sit close to each other.
For 8 buchteln you need
plain flour 400g / 14 ounces
granulated sugar 60g / 2 1/4 ounces
dry yeast 1 sachet (7g / 1/4 ounce)
salt 1/4 teaspoon
vanilla, scraped, 1/4 pod (or 1 package vanilla sugar)
orange zest 1 teaspoon
milk 125ml / 4 1/4 ounces
butter, melted, 80g / 3 ounces plus 80g / 3 ounces to coat the buchteln
organic eggs 2
jarred cherries, for the filling 16-24
sugar cubes, quartered, 4-6
icing sugar, for the topping
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, vanilla and zest. Whisk the cold milk with 80g (3 ounces) of the hot melted butter and the eggs (the mixture should be lukewarm) and add to the dry flour mixture. Mix with the dough hooks of your mixer for a few minutes until the dough is well combined and elastic. Continue kneading with your hands for about 4 minutes until you have a soft and silky dough ball. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover with a tea towel and let it rise in the warm oven (35°C / 95°F) for 70 minutes (top/ bottom heat and not fan-assisted!). The dough will need the last 10 minutes to reach the right volume.
Melt the remaining 80g (3 ounces) of butter in a sauce pan, take it off the heat as soon as it's liquid, it shouldn't be brown.
Take the bowl out of the oven, punch the dough down and knead for another 30 seconds. Divide the dough into 8 portions and roll each in your hands to a smooth ball. Fill each cherry with a quarter of a sugar cube. Use your thumb to make a hole in each dough ball and stuff it with 2-3 cherries. Close the ball well, use 2 fingers to close the fold of the hole tightly. Pour 3 tablespoons of the melted butter into the baking pan. Turn the little dough balls in the remaining melted butter and tuck them closely next to each other in the baking pan (the fold should be at the bottom). Pour the remaining butter over the buchteln. Cover with a tea towel and let them rise in a warm place for another 15-20 minutes.
Set the oven to 180°C / 355°F (fan-assisted oven).
Bake the buchteln for 30 minutes or until golden brown, check with a skewer, it should come out clean. When they are done, brush the warm top with a tablespoon of butter. Sprinkle with a little icing sugar and serve with warm vanilla custard.
For the vanilla custard
organic egg yolks 4
cornstarch 4 tablespoons
granulated sugar 100g / 3.5 ounces
milk 500ml / 17 ounces
a pinch of salt
vanilla pod, slit slightly, 1
Whisk the egg yolks with the cornstarch, sugar, salt and 50ml / 2 ounces of the milk until well combined.
In a saucepan, bring the remaining milk with the vanilla pod to the boil. Take the vanilla pod out and scrape the seeds out of the bean into the milk. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk, whisking well. Take the sauce pan off the heat after 1 minute and continue whisking for 2 minutes, serve immediately.
