Buchteln are sweet baked buns. This recipe is with a hazelnut filling and it's from Austria.
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📕 What are Buchetln?
Buchteln are sweet yeast rolls with a filling.
These sweet Buns are stuffed with jam or sometimes even with other surprises such as Topfen (fresh cheese) or even nuts.
You will find this traditional dish all around the alps in the heart of Europe but often you might not be able to recognize it in a menu because of the many names it is known for.
Buchteln are also known as Wuchteln, Rohrnudeln and Ofennudeln in German, the names pretty much depend on the location.
We Austrians in Tyrol and other parts of Austria call them Buchteln and I believe the South Tyroleans in Italy know the sweet buns by the same name.
However, originally it appears that the Buchteln were created in Bohemia ( Czech Republic) and are known today as Buchtičky.
No idea when the yeast buns appeared first, but a fact is that some 500 years ago the Bohemian kingdom was taken over by the Habsburg Monarchy and remained a part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire until the end of the 1st world war.
Therefore, my wild guess is that the buns must have been in existence for a while because they were popular all over the old Austrian Empire.
Locals from the German and Slavic-speaking countries must have loved it so much that it became an essential celebratory desert dish in each house.
The original Bohemian and Austrian Buchtel includes a jam stuffing, more precisely a harder Prune Jam stuffing which is better known as Powidl in the local dialect German.
🥣 How to serve Buchteln?
Very often you will find that the Buchten is served with a homemade Vanilla Sauce.
I for once would never serve or eat Buchteln without that sauce.
The main reason for that is, that the baked Buchtel dough is a bit on the dryer side of life and the pure creamy Vanilla flavors enrich the dish 10 times more, making it the perfect food combination or you can call it food marriage too.
🥣 Ingredients
This time I used some Fresh Yeast to bake this wonderful batch of Buchteln.
We in Austria bake a lots with fresh yeast and in college time it was the only yeast we were allowed to use.
I heard that the fresh yeast is better when used to bake bread, although I think I would always use fresh yeast instead of dried yeast if it was so readily available everywhere.
As per your choice, you can use some thicker jam too to stuff the Buchteln or you can come up with your own stuffing.
Here are some fillings that you can use instead of the hazelnut filling in the recipe:
📖 Recipe
Buchteln with Hazelnut Filling
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 8.8 Ounces All-purpose Flour
- 0.8 Ounces Fresh Compressed Yeast or 1 packet dry yeast (7 grams)
- 0.8 Ounces Sugar
- 2-3 Drops Vanilla Extract
- 2-3 Drops Lemon Extract
- 1 Egg
- 1.4 Ounces Butter melted
- 1¼ Cup Milk lukewarm
For the Filling:
- ¾ +1 tsp Cups Milk
- 2 Tablespoon Honey
- 5.6 Ounces Hazelnuts Flour
and...
- Butter grease baking pan
- All-purpose Flour to shape dough
- Powdered Sugar topping
Instructions
- Place the Flour into a mixing bowl and crumble the fresh yeast into the flour. If you are using dried yeast then just mix it into the flour and continue to stir in the sugar.
- Make a well in the center of the dried ingredients and add in the vanilla extract, lemon extract, egg, molten butter and lukewarm milk.
- Mix your ingredients and create a smooth dough by working it out shortly. Then pour some flour on top and place a cloth on that.
- Keep the dough to rise for at least 1 hour or until it has increased double in size.
- In the meanwhile prepare the Hazelnut paste. If you are using hard honey as I did in the picture, then add the honey to the milk and heat up the 2 ingredients until the honey melts. Otherwise just mix the honey to the milk.
- Stir in the hazelnut flour.
- Mix it all well and store it in a cool place until further use.
- Check on your dough and see if it has risen double the size. The top should be cracked and when you press on it, it should be light and fluffy. You can see the difference between the dough before and after it has rested for an hour. The dough has grown in size!
- Grease a pan with butter and preheat your oven to 350° Fahrenheit/180 Celcius.
- Take your dough and work it out shortly for a minute. Form it into one large sausage and cut a fist sized piece.
- Flatten dough and add about 1 ½ to 2 Tablespoons of the hazelnut paste into the center.
- Enclose the filling with the dough.
- Make sure that the filling can not be seen. The dough needs to enclose it properly without open seems.
- Place your filled Buchteln rolls into the greased pan, closing face down. Keep some space between each because they grow in size when you bake them. Keep them to rest for another 20 minutes in a warm and dry place. They will rise a bit more.
- Before baking them, spread some molten butter on top of each Buchtel bun. Bake them for about 20 to 25 minutes or until they get some color at 350° Fahrenheit/180 Celcius.
- When done baking; add powdered sugar on top while they are still warm and serve them straight away with the warm Vanilla Sauce.
Nutrition
📖 Recipe
Instructions
- Add about ¾ of the milk into a pan, together with a slit open Vanilla bean. Scrape out the Vanilla seeds with a spoon or knife and add it to the milk and vanilla bean in the pot. Heatup the milk.
- In a bowl mix the remaining milk smooth with the Cornflour, Sugar and Egg yolks.
- Pick out and discard vanilla bean from the milk.
- Keep on whisking your hot milk and pour in the Egg yolk milk mixture. Don't stop whisking or it will all burn on and the egg will be visible in little pieces. Just keep on whisking on low heat until the Cream starts to thicken, then keep it away from the heat.
- Serve it hot with the Buchteln or you can use it with other desserts as well.
that 40 grams of melted butter in the recipe is it 40 grams before melting the butter weight or after melting butter ?
Hi there, thanks for your question. It's 40 grams before melting the butter. 🙂
We spent 2 years living in Austra and ate them in Salzburg and at the tops of the Alps in Goldegg. Both times they were srved with a whole plum or a whole apricot fruit. The plumstill had its pit in it. Needless to say, they were two different recipes. One was more yellow as she added several eggs. It was yummy with the vanilla sauce. I felt that the sauce makes the dish.
We learned, that when we were invited to eat and only had a clear soup, to expect something like Buchteln, or total from scratch, Apfel Strudel with strudel tieg, as the main course. Were invited to quite a few different homes. It was fun to taste the different cuisines between the younger and the more traditi8nal older cooks. And we never passed up Alm cheese rather it was at a little farm up in the mountains, or the farmer's market and their 5 year aged cheese. Or the smoked Sibling near Lofar. Thank you for the Hazelnut recipe, as another recipe I will use my home grown Hazelnuts for.
Hi Katheen,
I agree the sauce definitely makes the dish, both, the Buchteln and sauce are meant to be enjoyed together. You are right there are lots of different recipes, it depends too on the region and districts. Sounds like you had the time of your life over there, you know you were living near my childhood home and I used to go to school around this corner, so I can exactly imagine the food you ate there and the essence of each meal.
You are growing your own hazelnuts, wow, that sounds super interesting, would love to learn more. =)
Such an interesting story accompanying this recipe, Helene. Thank you for sharing.
I'm very tempted to try making these!!
You just made my mind come up with all kinds of ideas on how I would want to make them!
Definitely on my list! Very soon!
xxx
Oh Helene - What a delicious sweet treat! Jam or sweet stuff dough is one of my favorites! The hazalnut paste and vanilla sauce sound so yummy with that dough!
Terrific stuff! I love hazelnuts, so I know I'd like these. I haven't had this before, but it looks excellent. Thanks so much.
I like the combination of honey and hazelnuts for the filling. This must really taste wonderful with an afternoon tea. Thank you, Helene!
I have never heard of these - but they sound and look absolutely amazing.
Ohhhh!! How cool are those buns!! Yummm. Lovely dessert Helene 🙂
Love these gorgeous buns! The filling sounds so delicious and that sauce is so good 🙂 Wish I could taste this Helene 🙂
Complimenti Helene, Baci
M.G.