Home › Recipes › German Puff Dumplings
German Puff Dumplings
Very fine, cheap and wholesome. They are usually boiled but can be raised and cooked in steamers, previously brushed over with butter as well. 2 pounds of good light bread dough. 4 ounces of sugar 1 egg and 2 yolks, or 2 eggs. 2 ounces of butter. 1 pound of flour.
If for midday dinner take the dough at seven in the morning, mix the sugar butter and eggs with it as well as can be, then set the pan in a warm place a while, after which it can be beaten smooth. Work in the flour to make it a stiff dough again and set it away to rise. At 11 o'clock work the dough by folding and pressing out with the knuckles roll it out to a sheet, brush over slightly with lard or butter, cut out like biscuits, let rise about half an hour on greased pans, drop into boiling water and cook about 15 minutes. Butter and sugar or any kind of pudding sauce, or stewed fruit. The plain dough, or that of French rolls is often cooked as dumplings to be eaten with meat. The receipt preceding may be made richer by adding yolks of eggs and more butter (but no more sugar) to any desired degree. Not as a matter of opinion as to what might or ought to be the case but as a matter of fact it has to be observed again that the plain dumplings yeast-raised are but seldom made in ordinary hotels, the two or three manipulations required and the early planning being against them. In ten minutes a similar article can be made with soda and butter-milk or acid, or with baking powder, that answers every purpose. It is something of an art to make these so that they will remain light when done, yet it is a very simple one, the essential being only to have the dough very soft, made and dropped with a spoon like fritters.
A yeast-raised dumpling built on leftover bread dough, enriched and either boiled or steamed. The schedule in the original assumes a hotel kitchen with dough already working at seven in the morning; at home it is easiest to make a plain white bread dough the night before or use a batch bought from a bakery.
- What "good light bread dough" meansA plain, fully risen white bread dough — flour, water, salt, yeast, no sugar or fat. Two pounds is roughly the dough from 5 cups of flour. It should be at the stage where you would otherwise shape loaves.
- Weights, not cups4 oz sugar is about 1/2 cup; 2 oz butter is 4 tablespoons; 1 pound of flour is about 3 1/2 to 4 cups. Work the flour in gradually — depending on how wet the base dough was, you may not need the full pound to get back to a stiff dough.
- The hinge: the dough must be slack, and the water calmThe water -- The original says to drop them into boiling water and cook about 15 minutes. Keep the water at a steady, not violent, boil, put the dumplings in without crowding, and do not stir them once they are in. Note that this dough is meant to be worked stiff and rolled out; the "very soft" dough described at the end of the receipt belongs to the soda or baking-powder version.
- TimingThe 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. marks are simply about four hours for the enrichment and second rise, then a half-hour proof on the pan after cutting. Judge by the dough, not the clock; enriched dough with this much sugar rises slowly.
- Steaming instead of boilingThe original allows them to be raised and cooked in steamers brushed over with butter. A stacked steamer or a covered pan with a rack works. Grease the surface as directed, allow room for expansion, and keep the lid on while they cook — the recipe's timing is about 15 minutes.
- DonenessThe receipt says cut out like biscuits and cook about 15 minutes, which suits a small dumpling. Cut one open: the crumb should be dry and springy through the middle, with no gummy core; larger ones will need longer.
- Yield and servingYield depends entirely on the size of the cutter; the full quantity makes a large batch. Serve warm with melted butter and sugar, any pudding sauce, or stewed fruit; the plain dough version goes alongside meat.
- The chemically leavened shortcutThe closing paragraph describes drop dumplings from soft dough with soda and buttermilk or acid, or with baking powder. Reckon about 2 teaspoons baking powder per cup of flour, or about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon soda per cup of buttermilk, and cook them at once — the dough must be spooned out very soft and loose, as stated.
The American Pastry Cook, attributed to the Chicago hotel-kitchen writer Jessup Whitehead, was written for men cooking to a schedule for large dining rooms, which explains the candour of the last paragraph: the yeast-raised dumpling is seldom made in ordinary hotels because of the two or three manipulations and the early planning it requires, and the author says plainly that the quick soda or baking-powder version "answers every purpose". The dish belongs to the family of southern German and Austrian yeast dumplings — Dampfnudeln and Germknödel, both yeast-raised, eaten with butter and sugar, a sweet sauce or stewed fruit — and dumplings of this kind were familiar to the German immigrant cooks and bakers who were a large presence in the Midwestern hotel and bakery trade of the late nineteenth century. The recipe's frugal logic is characteristic of that tradition: a piece of the day's bread dough, already alive, is enriched with sugar, butter and eggs and turned into a pudding, so nothing is begun from scratch and nothing is wasted.