Quarkballchen (German cheese doughnuts)

Now if you’ve ever been to the German Market in Birmingham leading up to the Christmas period, you may have smelt the heavenly fragrance of a doughnut permeating the air. I remember when I was working for the Blood Service, our offices used to be just above where these doughnuts were frying, and I couldn’t wait for my break to go and get these sweet morsels of deliciousness. And one was never enough! These beauties are called quarkballchen's and they are not your average doughnuts. After 4 years of trying to look for a valid recipe, I found one, in German would you believe. Thank Allah for Google Translate, because without it, I never would have got this recipe!

I used:

250g Quark
75g Caster Sugar
2 free range medium eggs
1 tsp. vanilla bean paste (the recipe calls for one pack vanilla sugar, but I couldn’t find any so used an extremely good quality paste)
250g plain flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. cinnamon powder (optional)
Pinch of salt
Oil for deep frying
Caster sugar for dusting
1 tsp. cinnamon powder for dusting (optional)

In a bowl, put in your Quark, caster sugar, eggs and vanilla paste and beat well with an electric whisk (I used my food processor because my whisk paddles were at my mum’s, but whisking is much better).

In another bowl, sieve your flour, baking soda, cinnamon powder and pinch of salt and mix well. Taking a heaped tablespoon at a time, add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and whisk well. Once all your ingredients are mixed well, it should create a very thick batter.

Heat up your oil, but keep it on a low heat. Approximately 165 degrees if you have a thermometer. You want your doughnuts to fry slowly to ensure the insides are well cooked, and this should take about 7 minutes.

Once oil is heated, using an ice cream scoop (or spoon if you don’t have a scoop), take dollops of batter and slowly put it in the oil to fry. Don’t overcrowd the oil otherwise the oil temperature will decrease and your doughnuts will take up too much oil.

Once they are of a golden brown colour, take out of the oil and drain on a kitchen towel.

During this time, put some caster sugar and cinnamon powder on a plate, then take the hot doughnut and dust liberally with the sugar mixture. Repeat this for all the doughnuts. Eat them while they are still warm!

If you do ever get the chance to go the German Market to try the quarkballchen's, I suggest you do! Because you will get hooked!

Hope you enjoy!

Yaz ♥