Oliebollen are Traditional Dutch food eaten on New Year’s Eve. These fried Dutch doughnuts are made with a yeast dough full of dried fruits and apples.
Can you guess what I will be having for breakfast every day in the upcoming holiday weeks? Oh yeah, many Oliebollen Dutch donuts which are a quintessential Traditional Dutch food treat for New Year’s Eve. Apparently over 80% of the Dutch population consumes Oliebollen on between Dec 26th/Jan 06th.
With this recipe, I wish you all Happy Holidays and a very Tasty, Happy and Healthy New Year!
Holidays in the Netherlands
Did you know that Santa Claus does not visit the Netherlands? Instead, children are visited by Sinterklaas (Saint-Nicholas) on December 5th and he leaves them little gifts and treats. The rest of the year, he lives in Madrid, Spain.
On Christmas day, families and friends gather in churches for quiet services and then celebrate over a delicious Dutch menu often including venison or roast goose, roast pork, bitter ballen, and vegetables.
They will also snack on typical Dutch food like boiled chestnuts, fruit, marzipan bread, and cookie. Letter cakes are shaped and baked like the first letter of family member’s name and many more Dutch desserts.
The Oliebollen Dutch snack only shows up on December 26th and the Dutch people gorge themselves with them for the next 2 weeks.
A Traditional Dutch Food New Year’s Eve Tradition
Oliebollen were first made by the Batavians and Frisians tribes and they were flat at first. And there is a cool folkloric story tied to these Dutch doughnuts.
The goddess Perchta would fly through the mid-winter sky with some evil spirits pals of hers. Perchta liked to cut open the bellies of all she came across. But if you ate an Oliebollen, her sword would slide off the body of whoever ate them because of the oil.
A delicious oil ball
If you translate Oliebollen directly, you get an oil sphere or oil ball. Not a very sexy translation. But it simply means fried dough balls, like our more familiar beignet or fritter fried dough recipe. Mentally, that sounds much better.
Some people just fry the doughnut balls plain but here we have added raisin and apples. You could try other dried fruits and nuts perhaps! Whichever way you make them, they are a great entry when trying out Dutch cuisine, a very popular Netherlands food, the stroopwafel.
The perfect finishing touch is a heavy dusting of icing sugar. They are the perfect breakfast, snack treat or dessert!
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Oliebollen | Traditional Dutch Food Doughnuts
Ingredients
- 300 g / 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 200 g / 1 1/2 cup plus 5 tsp all-purpose flour
- 10 g / 3 tsp instant yeast
- 10 g / 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 25 g / 2 Tbsp caster sugar
- 3 g / 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 150 ml / 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp brown beer room temperature
- 175 ml / 3/4 cup water room temperature
- 175 ml / 3/4 cup milk room temperature
- 50 g / 3 1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter melted but not hot
- 1 small egg
- 200 g 7 oz, or 1 1/3 cups raisins
- 1 small apple or half a big apple
- vegetable oil for frying
- powder sugar
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl mix flours and yeast with a whisk.
- Add salt, sugar and cinnamon, and mix again.
- Add beer, water and milk (mind the room temperature), the melted butter, and the egg.
- Attach the paddle to your mixer (or the dough hook, if you don’t have one) and mix the ingredients thoroughly. Go on until the dough becomes elastic, a few minutes.
- Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
- In the meantime cut the apple in small cubes, as big as peas or beans.
- Add raisins and apple to the dough, and mix well with a spatula.
- Put a wet towel over the bowl, and let the dough rise for an hour, until is has nearly doubled in size.
- In the meantime, put the oil in your deep fryer. Heat it to 180°C / 355°F.
- Get ready for cooking: place a tray on the counter and cover it with two layers of paper towels. Have something ready to place your scoops on, to not cover your counter with grease. And have a timer handy, to track frying time.
- Once the dough has doubled in size and the oil is hot, dip your ice scoop in the oil to avoid sticking, and fill it with dough, leveling it against the side of the bowl. Take care to include a reasonable amount of filling.
- Release the doughball carefully into the oil, by sticking the scoop into the oil and pulling the lever. For now, don’t add more oliebollen. Start the timer.
- Observe the behavior of the oliebol. It will start floating around, and after some time, it will turn over automatically. That way, in the ideal situation, it will brown on both sides. If the oliebol doesn’t turn over, help it when the frying time is halfway over, using a fork.
- After five minutes of frying, take it out of the oil and put it on the tray with paper towel. Wait a minute, and then cut it through the middle with a sharp knife. Look at the center. Do you see raw dough? Then you should have cooked it longer. Do you see a bread-like texture? Then it is done, and you could even try to shorten the cooking time.
- If you are satisfied with the texture? Then start again, but now with a few oliebollen at once. Are you not satisfied? Try again with a longer or shorter frying time.
- Keep frying until there is no dough left, and make sure the oliebollen are all the same size, otherwise they will need different cooking times. Don’t forget to start the timer with each batch, and remember that the ones you put in first, should be taken out first.
- Oliebollen are best when you eat them while they are still hot and crunchy. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar and enjoy!
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Check out all the wonderful Christmas/holiday dishes and sweets prepared by fellow Eat the World members and share with #eattheworld. Click here to find out how to join and have fun exploring a country a month in the kitchen with us!
Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Glædelig Jul, Nisser, and Mormor Agnes’ Æbleskiver
Literature and Limes: Makowiec
Palatable Pastime: Danish Asier Pickles
Amy’s Cooking Adventures: Lebkuchenherzen (German Cookies)
Chipa by the Dozen: Pepperkaker (Norwegian Christmas Cookies)
Evelyne: Oliebollen, the Dutch Doughnut
Loreto and Nicoletta: Sandbakkelse, Norwegian Christmas Cookies
Simply Inspired Meals: Classic Christmas Spritz Cookies
A Day in the Life on the Farm: Bohemian Potato Salad
Making Miracles: Scottish Steak Pie
Margaret at Kitchen Frau: Basler Leckerli, Swiss Christmas cookies
It’s not “Oliebollens”. It is “oliebollen”. Lose the “s” at the end.
Thank you for not focing discus or quora on me.
Thanks for the correction, but you could be a bit nicer about it. But your welcome for allowing sample commenting.
My dad immigrated from Netherlands and I am half Dutch. I just want to correct you that this deep fried snack is made on new years eve, the 31st to celebrate the coming of a new year, although you can sprinkle it in powder sugar to make it look fancier its easier to eat by dipping it in the powder sugar because not everyone likes it with powder sugar.
I did specifically wrote New year’s Eve everywhere, the 31st is NYE, not sure what you want me to correct.
My dad immigrated from Netherlands and I am half Dutch. I just want to correct you that this deep fried snack is made on new years eve, the 31st to celebrate the coming of a new year, although you can sprinkle it in powder sugar to make it look fancier its easier to eat by dipping it in the powder sugar because not everyone likes it with powder sugar.
Mmmmm…..these could be very dangerous to have around! I think oil balls are the perfect way to celebrate the new year! Apple fritters are my favorite “donut,” and these look AMAZING!!!
They are very addictive and you could absolutely use apples in here Happy oily New Year lol.
Neat dish! I think every culture has some form of fried dough. Why not? It’s good stuff! 🙂 Haven’t heard of these, so that means I should make them and check them out, right? 🙂 Thanks! And Happy Holidays!
Yes, John, you MUST make them for sure 😀 Happy Holidays to you too.
What a fun New Year tradition. We celebrate St. Nick day on December 6th. I had never heard that he lives in Spain. Fun little tidbit of knowledge.
Oh that is so cool Wendy that you celebrate Dec 6th. Yes, apparently he was born in Tunisia or Algeria, but now lives in Spain 😉
We make something very similar for Carnevale in Italy! These are scrumptious! I would devour them!
How interesting that you have a similar treat in Italy for another festivity. Yeah you can
Hi Evelyn!
Yummy Blog! Love your ideas and your recipes! looking at those pictures make me hungry……I want to try the gingerbread house too, but was afraid that it won’t look like a house.. Can you share some more delicious secrets, I mean how can you create the gingerbread house?
Hi Kate, thanks for your comment. I would follow this post that tells you how to build a gingerbread house 🙂 https://cultureatz.com/gingerbread-house-dreams/
Evelyne, your maple mousse in an edible container was my very first DK challenge – so much fun! I’ll miss this group a lot. Your oliebollen look great, and I am very very impressed by those Algerian Griwech pastries – I can’t believe I missed that one!!
Oh wow Korena I was your first DK, that is some time ago lol. Bacon cups! Never to late to do the Griwech on your own, so good! Thank you!
I would love these for my breakfast! They look utterly delicious!Happy New Year to you!
Well I did, no more for breakfast but lasted like 10 mornings. Thank you all the best for 2017!
These sound so good.I haven’t seen anything like them before so I’d love to try them.
Thanks and yes I love the fact that they are a bit different then the usual 🙂
I think I first “met” you via the Daring Bakers—never did start with the Daring Kitchen. I think donuts for the holiday weekend sounds just perfect—especially this lovely Dutch version filled with fruit. Happy New Year!!
Oh wow that is amazing you would remember where we ‘met’ lol. I think you are right. Happy New Year and many Happy Sweets to you.
The Daring Kitchen is coming to an end!!! I’ve participated only once and ever since I kept telling myself, next month I will be in, but unfortunately this next month never came :(. Love those fritters, the story is horrible though, what a vicious goddess :).
Yes alas this was the last one. Very sad indeed it was a great idea but lacking participation. Ha ha I know that myth is a lot like the original fairy tales. things did not end so well for Red Riding Hood in the original version.
Those look almost like beignets… I wonder what the culinary history there is in that type of donut? I love reading food history accounts! <3 –
Wikipedia talks about it, late middle ages I think. I love the flolkloric mythI wrote here about these lol.
Ooh I’ve made lots of donuts but never these! Thanks for the inspiration. They look very doable! Happy New Year Eve!! 😀
They are very doable, hope you try them. Happy New Year Lorraine!
You were a member longer than I was as I didn’t do your challenges. Thanks for sharing the myth behind these oliebollen.
Isn’t the myth great lol. True when you eat one! Happy New Year Tandy.
Oh girl! You made me miss Holland so much now! I lived in Amsterdam for over 2 years and I moved to Asia in August to travel. Oliebollen were always served during Christmas and National holiday. Yummy but a bit fatty 🙂
Oh really so cool you live there. I made 2 people of facebook miss Holland too with this post. Definitely fatty, that is why the bag went into the freezer as soon as cooled to only have a bit at a time lol.
So tempting these! I feel like reaching out and grabbing a few 😛
Thank you I wish I could pass one along. Happy New Year!
Wonderful! Fried stuff is always good and these are even better with raisins. Now the problem is how could you walk away just eating one or two? Geez, I have absolutely zero control over fried food, just like those Algerian Griwech pastries.
Happy New Year, Evelyne.
Thanks Angie and the answer is easy. I put them in the freezer as soonas they were cool lol and take 2 out in the morning for breakfast. Otherwise I would look like one in no time. Happy New Year Angie!