Currant rolls - Krentenbollen

A typical Dutch treat called "krentenbollen", which is a silly name because in most of these rolls you never see a currant, raisins are the main ingredient. The inside of the store-bought rolls are often yellow in color, due to an addition of something called "vruchtenbroodpoeder**" a mix of gluten, colorants, aroma's (citrus) and some other additives like dough enhancers and dextrose. I normally never use this which is probably why my younger kids never eat my home-made raisin bread or stollen! :-0 Don't you think it's strange that they favour my home baked bread and other goodies over store-bought but prefer supermarket krentenbollen?

By the way does anyone know why the bakers in Holland pick Wednesday for their krentenbollen promotion day? I know we have Woensdag-Gehaktdag (Wednesday-Ground Meat day) but did you ever notice that Krentenbollen are always on offer on Wednesdays? Strange!
On my last visit to the mill I buckled and bought a package of vruchtenbrood-powder, just to see if it would make a difference.... And yes my friends it did! (Grrr!). This is the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients:
2,5 ts yeast
870 gr ap flour (bread flour)
70 gr vruchtenbrood poeder
2,5 ts salt
40 gr butter
1 large egg
400 gr milk
100 gr water
200 gr mix of raisins and candied fruit (ratio 3 to 1)

Note: usually there is a larger quantity of raisins used, up to 40% of the flour weight but my kids like to, as my mum says: use a bike to travel from one raisin to the other... which indicates that ingredients are not as plentiful as you would like... (In Dutch: "je moet op de fiets van de ene rozijn naar de andere" om aan te geven dat iets zuinig gevuld is)

In the bowl of your standmixer combine all ingredients except raisins and mix on lowest speed untill combined. Switch to a medium low speed and continue mixing until the dough is gathering and forming a ball (approx. 7-10 minutes). It will still cling to the sides a little because I didn't soak the raisins and therefore used slightly more liquid in the dough. (In rising the raisins will soak up some of the liquid) Add raisins and mix for another minute so the raisins are evenly distributed through the dough.

Transfer with the help of a dough scraper onto a lightly oiled work surface, knead by hand for a couple of seconds, it will help to form a ball. Let rest in an oiled bowl and turn to cover all sides with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled (1 hour).

Tip dough onto a lightly floured or oiled surface and deflate gently, make a business letter fold and divide the dough into equal pieces with the help of your dough scraper. I made 80 grams rolls and got somewhere around 24.

Make rolls by rolling the dough under the cupped palm of your hand, using the pressure between worksurface and your hand to form nice rounded balls, make sure you have enough surface tension, it will help the second rise! Arrange on a baking sheet and cover to let rise a second time, about 45 minutes. (Not fully doubled, they need some ovenspring as well).

Do not preheat your oven but slide the sheet in and set your oven to 230C, set timer for 17 minutes. Oven will heat up while rolls are in, this will leave you with soft rolls. Please make sure you check in time! The rolls will bake into a deep golden brown and rise beautifully.
Cool the rolls on racks and eat as a snack or slice and butter. I like to add a slice of aged cheese as well. And maybe, if you have some left after two days, slice and grill them in your toaster or in a buttered pan....
Enjoy!

PS: I discovered that Nick Malgieri has our Dutch currant rolls covered on his site too!

PS: substitute vruchtenbroodpoeder for:
1 heaped ts of sugared citruspeel, 1/2 ts kurkuma for color, 1 tbs gluten, 1 tbs sugar, 1/2 ts powdered ginger, 1/2 ts cinnamon.

**Ingrediënten: Dextrose (25%), tarwegluten (20%), tarwebloem (15%), melkbestanddelen (15%), bonenmeel (7%), plantaardige vetten (koolzaad) (7%), emulgatoren: E482, E472e, E471 (6%), aroma's (1%), enzymen (1%), kleurstof E101 (1%), meelverbetermiddelen: E300, E920 (1%)