Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Batter Up

So, first of all, pretend you're reading this in early August
and not 4 months later in December.

As the great and glorious Oz famously said,
"Pay no attention to that date at the top of the blog entry!"


To bring the whole trans-generational 
Big Star Lake Dutch experience 
 full circle
we attempted to make some Olie Bollen,
also known as Vet Bollen.
This project was one of several that we decided to pursue
 this summer; more updates will follow (maybe).

Olie Bollen or Vet Bollen are oily balls
that make you fat, or, eventually, dead,
much like our American donuts.
In fact, they're basically giant donut holes
without all the bother of bending them into circles
like a Krispy Kreme.

And we owe this "circley" theme to Epke Zonderland 
because he seemingly came out of nowhere 
(okay ... Heerenveen,Vriesland!!)
and did this incredible THING at the London Summer Olympics
the night before our bake-fest
(Spoiler Alert ... it involves a lot of circles):



(Notice the American gymnast Danell Leyva 
in the grey warm up jacket, lower left,
copy the moves with Epke and then,
unable to contain himself ,
stand up at the 30 second mark to witness this knock out feat.)

The next day, our Dutch creative juices were really cranking
and we felt it appropriate to honor Epke in all his oranje boven greatness.
We cleansed the residual blue gill fishy taste 
from Dave's Fry Daddy,
filled it to the brim with a bunch of vein-clogging oil,
plugged it into an exterior outlet to prevent
Eau de Greasy Spoon aroma in the BSL chateau,
and then commenced to mixing up the ingredients.




Placement in the Fry Daddy was tricky, sticky and flesh-meltingly splashy.



Judy individually tossed each bollen in the sugar
even though she's missing a thumb and a pinky finger
(just KIDDING)


Then we had to carefully separate the raisin bollens from the non-raisins
because certain people have certain issues
and that's all we're going to say about that.

So eet smakkelijk y'all,
which is Nederlands for lip-smackin' good.


Here is the recipe straight from the
"Pine Rest Sanitarium and Christian Psychopathic Hospital Cookbook"
contributed by Grandma Jennie Hofman:

Vet Bollen
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 cup raisins
--mix ingredients together
 --drop by spoonful in grease @ 365 degrees that covers balls
 --2 minutes per side
 --put sugar in paperbag, add balls, shake