Cookbook:Buchteln (Austrian Sweet Buns)

Buchteln (Austrian Sweet Buns)
Buchteln (Austrian Sweet Buns)
Category	Dessert recipes
Servings	15–20
Time	Prep: 1 hr; Cooking: 30 min
Difficulty

Originally, Buchteln (singular: Buchtel) were a Bohemian sweet dish. However, in the course of time they have become part of the traditional Austrian cuisine.

This dough is yeast-based. In order to get nice, fluffy dough, the right combination of flour, milk and yeast is needed. Additionally, as a yeasted dough, this recipe is somewhat time consuming. This is indispensable as the dough needs to rise, and this takes some time.

The joy for cooking and baking should be in the foreground in today’s hectic society. So, take your time and try this traditional Austrian sweet dish.

Ingredients

Ingredient ^{[note 1]}	Count	Volume ^{[note 2]}	Weight	Baker's %
Dough
Flour		4 cups	500 g	100%
Yeast ^{[note 3]}	1 ⅛ cakes		20 g	4%
White granulated sugar		3 Tbsp + 3/16 tsp	40 g	8%
Butter		½ cup	120 g	24%
Eggs	2 ea.		100 g	20%
Salt	1 pinch	1/16 tsp	0.375 g	0.07%
Lemon (lemon peel)		2 tsp	4 g	0.8%
Milk (as required) ^{[note 4]}
Filling
Jam (optional)
Pans
Cooking oil or butter

Procedure

Scald milk by bringing it to at least 180 °F (82 °C), then let it cool.
Put the yeast in a small bowl and add some lukewarm milk to it. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar. Let it rest for a moment, as yeast in general needs some time to ferment.
When ready, add the yeast mixture to the bowl with the flour. Put the remaining sugar into the bowl. Make sure the mixture has reached at least room temperature, then mix in the eggs and a pinch of salt. Finally, add ground lemon peel.
Knead it until you get nice, smooth dough.
Use a cloth to cover the bowl. Let it rest until the dough has risen significantly.
In the meantime, thoroughly oil or butter a baking pan, preferably of about 5 to 10 cm height.
When ready, take the dough and put it on a clean, floured surface. Roll the dough to 1 cm thickness. Divide it so that you get equal squares of about 4 x 4 square centimeters each.
Top each square with a dollop of jam. Pinch together the 4 corners of the square to enclose the filling, then roll the bun in your hands to round it out.
Place the buns side-by-side in the greased pan. Cover them with a cloth once more, and let them rest for 20 minutes.
Bake the buns in a preheated oven until they are golden brown.

Notes, tips, and variations

Try dusting the buns with some powdered sugar.
For extra flavor, you may also serve them with some vanilla sauce.

Conversion notes

↑ Original weight-based recipe given in grams. Ingredient order preserved. Flour presumed as all purpose. Yeast type presumed as fresh compressed. Pinch defined as 1/16 tsp. Lemon was ambiguous, procedure texts suggests it and parenthetical means 1 lemon peel only, 1 lemon presumed to have 2 tsp of peel (minus pith). Milk, jam, and pan oil amounts unknown.
↑ Volumetric values are approximate, and were calculated from USDA National Nutrient Database data. To conserve column space, tablespoons were abbreviated as "T", and teaspoons as "t".
↑ This excessive amount of yeast will result in a strong yeast flavor. To reduce this flavor, it is recommend to use no more than 0.75% instant dry yeast expressed as a baker's %, alternatively, 2.5% cake yeast (compressed) or 1% active dry yeast, although you can expect fermentation time to increase somewhat. Further reductions will reduce yeast flavor even more, and those same reductions will result in longer times to rise during bulk ferment.
↑ A typical water amount would be 50-70% (based on flour weight), likely 57-62% depending on protein of flour, so 60% is a single average figure to work with. Eggs are 76% water, so 20% * 76% = 15.2%, which is the amount of water eggs have contributed. Butter is about 16% water, so 24% * 16% = 3.84%, or about 4%. 60% - 15% - 4% = 41%. Whole milk is about 88% water. 41% ÷ 88% ≈ 46.59%. Thus, baker's % whole milk value should be somewhere around the value of 47%. Values to try would be in the approximate range of 37-57%.

[1] Original weight-based recipe given in grams. Ingredient order preserved. Flour presumed as all purpose. Yeast type presumed as fresh compressed. Pinch defined as 1/16 tsp. Lemon was ambiguous, procedure texts suggests it and parenthetical means 1 lemon peel only, 1 lemon presumed to have 2 tsp of peel (minus pith). Milk, jam, and pan oil amounts unknown.

[2] Volumetric values are approximate, and were calculated from USDA National Nutrient Database data. To conserve column space, tablespoons were abbreviated as "T", and teaspoons as "t".

[3] This excessive amount of yeast will result in a strong yeast flavor. To reduce this flavor, it is recommend to use no more than 0.75% instant dry yeast expressed as a baker's %, alternatively, 2.5% cake yeast (compressed) or 1% active dry yeast, although you can expect fermentation time to increase somewhat. Further reductions will reduce yeast flavor even more, and those same reductions will result in longer times to rise during bulk ferment.

[4] A typical water amount would be 50-70% (based on flour weight), likely 57-62% depending on protein of flour, so 60% is a single average figure to work with. Eggs are 76% water, so 20% * 76% = 15.2%, which is the amount of water eggs have contributed. Butter is about 16% water, so 24% * 16% = 3.84%, or about 4%. 60% - 15% - 4% = 41%. Whole milk is about 88% water. 41% ÷ 88% ≈ 46.59%. Thus, baker's % whole milk value should be somewhere around the value of 47%. Values to try would be in the approximate range of 37-57%.

[note 1]

[note 2]

[note 3]

[note 4]