Rothenburger Schneeballen (Franconian pastry balls) from the airfryer

Name: Rothenburger Schneeballen (Franconian pastry balls) from the airfryer
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 18 min
Total time: 58 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 250 g plain flour (type 405); 50 g sugar; 1 pack vanilla sugar; 1 pinch salt; 50 g butter or margarine; 2 piece eggs (medium); 2 tbsp cream; 2 tbsp rapeseed oil; 3 tbsp icing sugar

A traditional German pastry from Bavaria: in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, thinly rolled shortcrust pastry is cut into strips and wound loosely into a ball, which here bakes in the airfryer basket without a bath of hot fat. The tangled strips turn pale gold, shatter into splinters at the first bite and disappear under a thick layer of icing sugar. Because the balls are bulky, only three fit side by side with space in the basket and the second half is baked afterwards.

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Cook time

58 min

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Servings

🧂

Ingredients

View Original ↗

Nutrition

per serving

335 kcal

Calories

6 g

Protein

14 g

Fat

45 g

Carbs

Ingredients

For 6 servings

Estimated cost~€1.15 · ~€0.20/serving

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Instructions

1
Mix the plain flour with the sugar, the vanilla sugar and the salt in a bowl.
2
Add the cold butter or margarine in pieces, the eggs and the cream and quickly knead everything into a smooth, firm shortcrust pastry.
3
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill it.
4
Roll the dough out in batches to a thickness of 2 to 3 mm and cut it into six rectangles of about 15 × 20 cm.
5
Cut each rectangle with a pastry wheel into strips 1 cm wide in such a way that the strips stay joined at the ends. Wind the strips loosely into a ball and pin them together with two cocktail sticks; in a Schneeballen iron the shape comes out most evenly.
6
Brush the balls thinly all over with the rapeseed oil, or the strips of pastry stay pale and dry.
7
Preheat the airfryer to 160 °C; at a higher heat the thin strips turn dark outside before the ball is done in the middle.
8
Set three balls into the basket in a single layer with space between them and stack nothing; the bulky balls need air all round, which is why they are baked in two rounds. Bake at 160 °C.
9
Turn the balls carefully and finish baking them pale gold at 160 °C, then bake the second round in the same way.
10
Leave the Schneeballen to cool on a rack, pull out the cocktail sticks and dust them thickly with the icing sugar.