(I borrowed a picture from Stephanie from "A whisk and a spoon" because I coldln't find the original picture from the book in a reasonable time. Hope it's ok!! Stephanie's Scherben look really absolutely perfect, far away from mine, but I wanted to let everybody see why I was so attracted by the looks of the Scherben!)
What I didn't realize was, that Mrs. Vogel's Scherben include frying. I have no fryer and never fried anything before. So I was prepared to skip this one. Honestly, I was just to milquetoasty. (A big sorry goes to Tianna of Spork or Foon?, who chose the recipe - yes, I am also one of the fraidy-cats. But and I can absolutely understand why she opted for them. Honestely, I had similar considerations despite the fact that counting the recipes left and TWD-participants, it will never be my turn...)
But than Caitlin of Law of the Kitchen came up with the idea of baking the Scherben instead of frying them, and that's just what I did!
The dough is really easy, so easy that it did not even take me more than 10 minutes. If you knew me, you would know that's really, really fast!I was concerned of the amount of dough. As you can see here, my dough-ball seemed to very small. (see left how small it was. And no, that's not an enourmus gigantic Starbucks-like pot, just an ordinary herb-tea pot)
But the recipe calls for rolling out the dough very thin, so I guess the amount was just right.
As (almost) always, I used spelt-flour and I never had problems with it. (At least I do not think that for my "difficulties" a.k.a. clumsiness the spelt can be blamed for)
For baking I brushed half of the Scherben with olive oil and the other half with walnut oil. Both are fine, but the pieces with walnut oil taste much better! I thought the slight walnut taste would do no harm, as in the end the Scherben are dusted in cinnamon-sugar, so walnut seemed to me as a good taste-match. And it was.
My first baking sheet was slightly too long in the oven, but the second turned out fine. They just didn't get many of the bubbles dough gets when fried. But that didn't really catch me by surprise... :o]
Tomorrow will be the litmus test, when I bring them to the office, where more or less all my baking-experiments end up. I hope they will survive the night...
Just one last word to the name of the "cookies". Some of my fellow bakers discussed the word "Scherben". I was surprised of the name, but obviously this kind of fried dough (something not very usual in my country; obviously it seems to be an ordinary sweet at fairies and things like that in the US) is regularily called Scherben in Germany. In the book, Dorie tells the story of the Scherben, and it seems like Mrs. Vogel, who "invented" the recipe, used to call them Schneball. Schneball is something I know from the years I was living in Germany.
Unfortunately, I remember them as looking pretty good, and tasting awfully boring, even when they were dusted in cinnamon and sugar or coated with chocolate.
(pictures taken from wikimedia and http://philipp1112.wordpress.com)
After two bites you have enough, because there is nothing interesting more to discover. But in fact, the Scherben do not look like a "snowball" (what is the translation for Schneeball) at all, it seems that just the dough and preparation sis the same. They also do not look like "Scherben", but never mind. In this (compared to the Schnebälle) homeopathic dosis, this sweet is not too bad.
You already guess it - I am not too excited about them. But let'swait for the judgement by the crowd omorrow!
Update: When I had a look at the plate I placed in the common room after coffe-break time I thought: "Well, now it happened. I spoiled them. Simple fried baked dough with cinnamon and sugar is nothing to write home about anymore. One year, even three months ago, my colleagues would have been impressed what I was able to create. But now? They are used to oppulent three-layer cakes, colourful tartes and sophisticated cheesckaes. I spoiled them with too much chocolate, butter and eggs. They don't know the value of the simple things anymore."
You guess it - they left on the plate a lot of the Scherben.
But, today, late in the afternoon, I wanted to go for the rest of the Scherben for a colleague who needed urgently some solace (and what can bring more solance than sweets). But they were all gone!
I don't know what happened. Maybe the Scherben did (contrary to what the recipe says) improve over night (what I doubt, because despite the one or the other gramm of butter or sugar that could possibly be left out, Dorie is always right with her recipes, recommendations and tips and tricks). Maybe yesterday nobody had time for a coffee break (I do mostly not participate because it is an old institution for some of my colleagues who work in my department for several years, and they have their coffee at 1.30 pm, what is way too early for the afternoon break for me!). Maybe they were frantically looking for a treat, and the Scherben were all they found. Maybe my colleagues discovered their humble side over night.
What ever might have been the real reason. By 4 pm the Scherben were all gone, so I guess they were not too bad!
