Custard Snail Buns (Puddingschnecken)

As I recently learned these buns are not called Custard Snail Buns, even though this is close to their German name, but rather Custard Chelsea Buns. They are related to Cinnamon Buns, but are filled with raisins and custard and lack the frosting of the cinnamon buns. These types of buns start with a yeast dough that is rolled out flat, filled and then rolled together into a long tube. The rolled in dough forms a snail shell pattern inside, which is made visible when the long tube is sliced, and the slices are placed flat on a baking sheet.

Ingredients:

Parchment paper

For the yeast dough:

125 ml milk

50 g butter or margarine

500 g flour

1 package dry yeast

50 g sugar

2 eggs

For the custard:

2 packages vanilla pudding powder

750 ml milk

80 g sugar

100 g raisins

For the glaze:

4 tablespoons apricot jam

2 tablespoons water

Preparation:

1. Heat milk in a stovetop pot or in the microwave until warm, not hot. Dissolve butter or margarine in warm milk.

2. Mix flour and dry yeast in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients for the yeast dough and warm milk-fat mixture. Using an electric hand mixer (knead hooks) mix until a smooth dough has formed. Cover bowl and let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

3. Prepare the filling: Add sugar and vanilla pudding powder to milk and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 min, then pour into a bowl. To prevent any milk skin from forming cover the custard with plastic wrap, but making sure the plastic wrap is directly on top and touching the custard. Let cool down to room temperature, then stir in raisins.

4. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

5. Sprinkle flour on yeast dough, remove from bowl, and briefly knead on a flour-covered surface. Roll dough out to a rectangle of 60 cm x 40 cm (24 inches x 15 inches). If necessary or easier, divide dough in half before rolling to to a rectangle half the size.

6. Spread custard on dough. Starting from the longer end form a roll with the dough. This will make the snail pattern. Cut 2 cm (3/4 inch) thick slices and put these slices on the baking sheet covered with parchment paper or additional parchment paper. Leave enough space between the slices.

7. Let slices rise at a warm place until visibly increased in size, them bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) for about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, spread apricot jam through a fine mesh, then mix with water, and heat until volume starts to reduce. Spread glaze over hot buns and let buns fully cool down.

Comments:

1. Custard Filling: For this recipe I actually used German Vanilla Pudding powder. Each package usually calls for 500 ml milk each, but to make a stiffer custard I only used 3/4 liter milk. In exchange for German Vanilla Pudding powder you can also use vanilla-flavored Cook and Serve JELLO, but make sure to reduce the amount of milk. However, because JELLO is already sweetened I would recommend to leave out the sugar added here. Alternatively, in exchange for the German Vanilla Pudding powder one can also make the filling from scratch using 74 g potato starch, some vanilla aroma and sugar and milk and prepare as described above.

2. I found that the amount of custard filling was actually a little more than what I needed. If using too much filling it starts to squeeze out the sides when cutting the slices. 500 ml milk might be sufficient, but then it gets more difficult with the amount of pudding powder. One package makes the custard too runny, two is too much and makes it too stiff.

3. I didn't have enough raisins, but I had dried apricots at home, so I used half each. I had soaked the fruit in rum for some extra flavor, but the downside of this is that the custard turned slightly brown because of the dark rum I had used. Doesn't look as inviting as with a bright custard.