In the bakeries of Schmitz & Nittenwilm in cologne you can buy a delicious pastry filled with Vanilla cream. This “Vanillestange” are our most favourite pastry. The Bakery sells other good pastry, too but “Vanillestangen” are our Idea of a perfect pastry. The combination of a fluffy bun filled with  creamy vanilla cream and toped with a thick layer of powdered sugar creates a irresistible pastry. And so you can imaging the shock of my colleagues when we learnt last year that they don’t sell them during summer. Three month without “Vanillestangen”   that is a very hard fate.

When I filled through my new Cookbook the german Version of A piece of cake I found a recipe for vanilla rolls. The vanilla rolls sounded like a smaller version of the beloved “Vanillestangen” so I bookmarked the recipe to try it soon.

But when I planned to bake them some weeks later I reread the recipe and realised that there are some points I don’t like. The dough contains to much yeast and not enough liquid and for this pastry I do not like cardamom ´in the dough, either. And the vanilla cream was in my eyes overloaded with egg yolks.  So I decided to use one of my tried and trusted recipes for the dough and my favourite vanilla cream recipe.

The resulting vanilla buns share just the Idea how they are assembled with the version found in the book the rest is my interpretation. And I like my way because the vanilla buns a great: Gorgeous vanilla cream filled in little buns – this is a worthy alternative for “Vanillestangen”

Vanilla buns

Poolish:

• 0,5g yeast
• 125g Milk
• 125g water
• 250g flour Type 550

Dough:

• 10g yeast
• 25g water
• 250g flour Type 550
• 100g sugar
• 100g butter
• 4g salt

Topping:

• 40g melted Butter
• 50g sugar

Vanilla Cream:

• 2 tsp. Agartine
• 200g milk
• 15g starch
• 2 yolks
• 20g butter (room temperature)
• 1 pinche Salt
• Pulp of a vanilla bean
• 30g Water
• 30g sugar
• 70g Glucose (The glucose can be replace with normal sugar)
• 2 egg white

Mix water, flour and yeast for the poolish and ferment it overnight (12 to 16 hours).

The next morning: Mix poolish, water flour and yeast for about 3 min at low speed, then let it rest for about 30 – 40 min. Then knead for 6 min on high speed until medium gluten development.

Now add the sugar spoon by spoon, always knead in between until the sugar is incooperated, then add the next spoon full sugar. Then add the butter, again in small portions.

Rest the dough 1 hour on room temperature.

Divide the dough into pieces of 40g each and form into balls.

Poof on a paper lined baking sheet for one hour.

Bake at 200°C for 12-15 min.

Directly after baking glaze the small buns with some melted butter and cover them with sugar. Let cool on a wired rack.

For the Vanilla Cream boil Milk with agar, salt, vanilla bean pulp and sugar. Mix egg yolks with starch and stir this into the boiling milk. Boil the mixture for around 2 min, stiring constantly,  then remove it from the heat, add the butter and stir until it is mixed completely. Pour the cream into a bowl and cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent skin forming. Cool down to 40°C

Now boil sugar, glucose and water until its reach 121°C.  In the meantime whipping the egg white. When the sugar syrup reach the temperature, slowly pour it into the egg white while whipping. Keep whipping until it cool down to 40°C.

Now fold it into the custard and fill the cream to a piping bag with a a long thin tip. Fill each bun with vanilla cream.

I send this recipe to Yeastspotting, Susan’s weekly showcase of yeast baked goods.

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