Danish Cream Puffs aka Flødeboller – and a quick guide to tempering chocolate

Here’s another very Danish recipe – Flødeboller (cream buns if translated directly)

These little creamy and sweet treats have been made in Denmark for the past 200 years. I guess you could call them cream buns or snowballs of some sort. Basically it’s a cookie, wafer or marzipan disk, topped with a velvety, foamy meringue with a marshmallow like quality (but a bit runnier than a full marshmallow), which is delicately covered with either dark or white chocolate. The classic is with dark chocolate, but today there are so many variations that white chocolate is quite normal too.

They are not a seasonal treat and are found in all supermarkets, bakeries and most cafes in Denmark. Some are classic and others are flavored with either mocha, licorice, strawberry or caramel.

One of my Christmas presents was a digital candy thermometer, and this was the perfect opportunity to test it out. It worked great and it opens up lots of recipes I can try out now.

The recipe I am using is one I found on another bloggers site, Copenhagencakes

Ingredients:

60 g water

150 g sugar

80 g glucose syrup

1 vanilla pod

100 g egg whites

2 small tablespoons sugar

200 g marzipan

icing sugar

250 g dark chocolate

 

Method:

Sprinkle powdered sugar on work surface and roll the marzipan out to the desired thickness. I rolled it out to about 5 mm.

To make the bottom, cut out little circles of the rolled out marzipan using a small glass or jar

Bake them for 5 minutes at 200 degrees C until they were light brown. If you want the bottom to be raw marzipan, just skip the baking part.

Once they have cooled, coat with a thin layer of chocolate and let set.

Boil water, sugar, glucose syrup and vanilla in a pot without a lid until it has a temperature of 117 degrees

Whisk egg whites and 2 tablespoons of sugar until almost stiff.

Pour the sugar mixture slowly over egg whites while whisking. Beat further for approx. 8 minutes while the mass thickens . Stop When the desired consistency is achieved .

Add the meringue mixture to a piping bag and place it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Pipe a bit of meringue mixture on the marzipan bottoms. Let them set for about 1 hour in the refrigerator.

Now temper the chocolate and coat the cream buns. I found that the easiest way to do so is by placing the ‘naked’ cream bun on a large fork  over the bowl of tempered chocolate and pouring chocolate over with a spoon. Make sure to let enough chocolate drip off so you only have a thin layer left.

Place on a piece of baking paper and let set. If you wish to decorate them with shopped nuts, sprinkles or coconut shavings, do so now before it sets.

How to temper Chocolate:

A)    The ” thorough ” method:

Chop the chocolate. Add ⅔ chocolate in a bowl over a water bath.

Melt the chocolate, stirring over a water bath where the water does not boil – it just needs to be hot. The chocolate must reach a temperature of 45 º C.

Remove the bowl of chocolate from the heat and add the last ⅓ of chocolate.  Stir until it is melted and the temperature has dropped to 28-30 ° C.

Now heat the chocolate up to 31-33 ° C

B)     The “easy” method:

Chop the chocolate fine. ⅔ chocolate in a bowl over a water bath .

Melt the chocolate , stirring over a water bath where the water does not boil – it just needs to be hot.

Remove from the heat and add the remaining ⅓ chocolate and stirred in until melted .