This is a recipe post. Allergens: contains gluten, lactose, and alcohol.

The oliebol is a Dutch thing for new year’s eve. From mid-November you can find stalls in front of supermarkets, at the home-improvement store, outside the mattress store, in squares everywhere. The oliebollenkraam. And then the boxes of Koopman’s Oliebollen Mix start blocking the aisles at the supermarket, and the 5 litre jugs of frying oil appear on shelves. More information about oliebollen (and how as a food-product they’re not limited to the Netherlands) can be found on the internet.

It’s a thing.

At new year’s eve, the neighbours at the end of my little street get together – Adriaan, Adriaan, Antoon, and whoever else shows up – to fry oliebollen under my car port. Each year our getup gets a little more fancy, with better screening from the wind, improved lighting, what have you. There’s a fire to keep us warm, music (Snob 2000 is a good pick), and whatever weird-ass alcoholic beverages we’ve collected this year. Slovenian “Punch” liqueur? Elster kruitenbitter? Maracuja cream? Lychee fizz? Pour it.

Here’s what I made this year, since I don’t use the boxes of mix. The mix is good enough, but there’s some joy to be had in do-it-yourself. Besides, as a daily baker-of-bread I have everything in-house anyway. Recipe is good for about 20 boils, depending on the size of the spoon used to spoon the batter into the deep-fryer.

Volkoren Herfstbok Oliebollen

Wets:

  • 250ml Grolsch Herfstbok, warmed up in the microwave (about 1min at 600W)
  • 250ml milk, also warmed up

Drys:

  • pinch of salt
  • 8g (a small scoop) brown sugar
  • 6g (a heaping teaspoon) dry yeast
  • 250g whole wheat flour (for bread; the local windmill adds a little extra gluten and ascorbic acid)
  • 250g white flour (patentbloem from the supermarket)

Lumps:

  • 125g of raisins or currants, soaked in warm water and then drained

Mix the wets. Mix the drys. Mix the drys into the wets and stir to a smooth(-ish) batter. Stir in the lumps. Let rise for at hour or a little more at 40℃. Fry spoonfuls (I have a small soup-ladle that yields a nice size) at 180℃ for 5 minutes, flipping them in the hot oil after about 3 minutes to brown them nicely on both sides.