The Plate of the Planet: Schweineöhrchen

From Dr. Oetkers Backen Macht Freude. Yes. Baking does bring joy. To my tummy.

Mine do not look as good. But I don't care because I have officially given up on my food being aesthetically pleasing.

That means pigs ears. This particular type of pastry is also known as elephant ears, or Palmiers. Ironically, absolutely no meat is used to make these. When I was in the sixth grade my lovely aunt took me to Paris. I did not deserve it because I slept in until noon everyday and acted like a grumpy old man. At least I picked up one part of French culture, I guess. I am sorry, that was rude. Anyways one day we left the city to go to the countryside where they had special cows and my aunt’s friend lived with his family. I was angry and sleepy because the early train ticket meant I had to wake up way earlier than midday. So Morton, the friend, stopped at the bakery and picked me up a pastry called “pigs ears”. (Do you see the connection now. Please say that you do.) I was too afraid to eat it because earlier in the trip I had been tricked into eating horse and I was not about to eat another odd part of an animal. So basically I looked even more spoiled. I guess you can say that talent comes easily to me.

So you can imagine how excited I was, when I found a recipe for pigs ears while flipping through Dr. Oetkers Baken Macht Freude cookbook. It is really easy to make and a wonderful way to freak out your friends or drink with coffee. Plus they seem springy to me. So because spring has sprung and I finally see some flowers outside, I present to you: Schweineöhrchen.

Ingredients:

1 package of puff pastry (Not filo dough. I recently learned that they are two different things. Also, Germans use this ingredient a lot. It was always present in my International Cooking class there.)
25 grams of butter (about two tablespoons)
50 grams of sugar (about 4 tablespoons)
1 package of Vanillin Zucker*

substitute: 1 tablespoon of sugar mixed with a couple drops of vanilla extract. I made this up but it seemed to work.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Follow the instructions on the puff pastry packaging. Basically leave it out for a couple hours or in the fridge overnight. Make sure it is not frozen when you start to use it.
Mix the two sugars together.
Lay out the puff pastry on wax paper.
Cover in the butter. Literally until you are grossed out that you are using too much butter.
Sprinkle the sugar on top.
Roll both of the sides together until they meet and it looks like a very long butterfly.
Cut into half inch little slices.
Put on baking paper and put that into the oven.
Eat a snack.

Tortilla with eggs and squash. Just saying.
Bake for around 15 min. The recipe said to turn them over after 10 min, but I found this too difficult so I didn’t do it. Mine turned out fine. I’m not sure if they were in there for exactly 15 min, it was probably longer. Just wait until they look golden brown and like you would want to eat them.

pretty

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