Dampfnudeln
Dampfnudeln is a delightful German dish. If bread sponge is on hand take as much of it as would make a small loaf, work into it 3 tablespoonfuls of melted shortening; if not, start with 1 cupful of milk, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1 scant tablespoonful of butter melted and 1/4 of a yeast cake. Divide the light dough, when ready, into small round biscuits and let them raise a little on the board. In a large frying-pan melt 1 tablespoonful of butter and let it run round the bottom and sides, then pour in cold milk until a quarter of an inch deep. Fit in the biscuits so that they almost touch. Cover closely and keep over a moderate fire, turning the pan occasionally from side to side. Do not lift the lid, but when the butter begins to sizzle-which will be in about twenty minutes-they should be done, crisp on the bottom and well puffed up, the milk having entirely evaporated during their cooking. Serve with plenty of apple or apricot sauce.
A steam-fried yeast dumpling that finishes with a fried crust once the milk boils away. The recipe assumes a cook who knows how to bring a soft bread dough together, and never states the flour.
- The missing flourThe from-scratch version lists milk, salt, butter and yeast but no flour at all. A cup of milk with that amount of enrichment will take roughly 2.5 to 3 cups of flour to make a soft, just-tacky dough; add it by feel rather than trusting any single number.
- Yeast cakeA quarter of a compressed yeast cake is on the order of half a teaspoon of instant or active dry yeast. Yeast cakes of this period varied in freshness and strength, so watch the dough rather than the clock: one rise until doubled, then a short bench rise once shaped.
- Bread spongeThe first option assumes a jar of active sponge or leftover bread dough is already in the kitchen. Any soft white bread dough works, enriched with the three tablespoons of melted fat as directed.
- Do not lift the lidThis is the hinge. The dumplings cook in trapped steam, and the lid coming off drops the temperature and deflates them. The sizzle is the signal that the milk is gone and the butter alone is left, frying the base.
- Moderate fireOn a modern burner that means medium-low. Too high and the milk scorches before the dumplings have set through; too low and they never build enough steam to puff. Rocking the pan, as instructed, keeps the thin layer of milk moving to the hot spots.
- Pan and lidUse a heavy skillet with a tight-fitting lid, cast iron or similar. A glass lid lets you watch without breaking the seal, which is worth more here than in most recipes.
- YieldA dough this size makes about 8 to 10 dumplings, serving four. Fit them close but not squeezed, since they nearly double in the pan.
- The sauceApple or apricot sauce is not optional garnish. The dumplings themselves are barely sweet, and in Germany they are served with fruit compote, vanilla sauce or stewed plums.
Dampfnudeln means simply "steam noodles," from Dampf (steam) and Nudel, which in southern German usage covers a much wider family of dough shapes than the English word suggests. They belong to Bavaria, Swabia and the Palatinate, where they are eaten both as a sweet dish with vanilla sauce or fruit and as a savoury one with soup or potato broth, and where the crisp browned base is central to the technique. Its appearance in an American cookbook is unsurprising on two counts: the dish is little more than flour, milk and a scrap of yeast, and German-speaking immigrants were a large presence in the United States, so a cookbook could introduce a German dumpling by name and expect readers to recognise it. The instruction to use bread sponge "if on hand" points to a kitchen where a leaven was already being kept, with a handful of dough treated as something already available rather than made specially.