Cooking

Dampfnudeln

These tasty German steamed dumplings can be served both salty and sweet, but I will only consider the salty variant. I am trying to find the perfect recipe, which should result in fluffy but moist dumplings with some texture.

There are several variables to consider such as:

1. Ratio of ingredients
2. Type of flour
3. Resting time for dough and yeast

Ingredients

My current baseline for ingredient-ratio is:

• 10 Flour
• 5 Fluid (This is typically 3:2 milk and egg, but you can also just use water.)
• 2 Butter
• 0.5 sugar
• 0.033 salt (about 33g for 1kg of flour)

Flour

In Germany, there are several types of flour available which are sorted by the type of grass (e.g. wheat) and a different amount (a number) of minerals. Larger number usually have more (or “larger” chunks?) of minerals. Technically, the number defines the amount of the mineral that remains when the flour is burned at a certain temperature, but that does not really matter too much for the experiments. But do note that certain flours require more water, as, for example, they soak up more fluid.

So far I have tried the following:

Wheat

• 1050
• 550
• 450
• 00
• Semolina (does not have a number)

Rye:

• 997
• 1150

Spelt:

• 630
• 1050

State-of-the-Art

From an independent survey which a sample group of eight people it appears that the two favorites are:

1. Wheat, 00 (“pizza-flour”), with 20% of flour exchanged for semolina)
2. Wheat, 550

Procedure

• Mix half of the flour with the (non-egg) part of the fluid and some yeast.
• Let rest over night.
• Add the remaining ingredients and possibly more yeast, knead well.
• Form small balls, about the size of a mandarin. These are your ‘Dampfnudeln’
• Let rest for another 2 hours.
• Heat a pan or pot with about 0.5cm of water, add about 1-2 teaspoons of salt (depending on how much salt crust you want, and how large your pan is), and add about a tablespoon of butter.
• Bring to a boil, place the Dampfnudeln in the water. With the dumplings in place the water should not be higher than about 1cm.
• Put a lid on the pan and cook until all water is gone and the dumplings start frying.
• Fry until golden brown.