Hamburg specialty
Franzbrötchen: Pâtissier and TV favorite Christian Hümbs finally reveals his recipe
They look relatively unspectacular, but they have it all: Franzbrötchen.
© DK Verlag / Jan C. Brettschneider
You can find them everywhere in Hamburg. The cinnamon-sweet Franzbrötchen are a specialty of the city. One person who can’t keep his hands off the pastries is pâtissier Christian Hümbs. Now he finally reveals his recipe.
The Franzbrötchen, it’s a real hamburgersie. Danish pastries with their full cinnamon and sugar droning should not be missing in any bakery in the Hanseatic city. And if Christian Hümbs has it, then it shouldn’t be missing anywhere anyway. Hümbs, also known as the jury member for the TV show “Das große Backen”, is an excellent pastry chef, but in his opinion nothing beats Franzbrötchen. He eats it every day. His passion goes so far that he is now also selling his variant of the specialty in his new adopted home, Switzerland. Now the recipe for Franzbrötchen à la Hümbs is finally available to bake again – in his new baking book “Back you around the world: 90 sweet recipes against wanderlust” and here.
Franzbrötchen à la Hümbs
Difficulty level: demanding
Preparation: approx. 35 min. + Approx. 30 min. Resting time + cooling time
Baking time: approx. 14 min.
Shopping list for around ten Franzbrötchen
For the Danish pastry:
500 g flour, plus a little more
5 g of salt
45 g fresh yeast
230 g milk, cold
Pulp of 1 vanilla pod
70 grams of sugar
85 g butter, room temperature
For the sugar:
25 g of sugar
9 g ground cinnamon (if possible from Vietnam)
aside from that:
200 g butter for touring
120 g nut butter, liquid
Pastry brush
Wooden spoon
Powdered sugar (to taste)
The new book by Christian Hümbs: “Back dich um die Welt” has been published by DK Verlag, 224 pages, 24.95 euros.
© DK Verlag / Jan C. Brettschneider
This is how the Franzbrötchen are made:
1. For the butter plate, roll out 200 g butter between two pieces of baking paper into a 20 × 20 cm square.
2. For the Danish pastry, mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Crumble the yeast into the cold milk, add the sugar and stir until the yeast has dissolved. Add the milk mixture and room temperature butter to the flour and knead with the dough hook in the food processor for about 4 minutes at low speed and then for 6 minutes at high speed to form a smooth, elastic dough. Shape the dough into a ball, press it flat, wrap it in cling film and cover it in the freezer for 20 minutes.
3. Roll out the chilled dough on a floured work surface from the center in all four directions into an evenly thick, approximately 22 × 40 cm rectangular plate and remove any excess flour. Place the butter plate in the middle of the dough plate and fold the edges over it so that the butter is completely covered by the dough. Make sure that the butter and dough are about the same firm and that the dough above and below the butter is the same thickness. The dough should not have any openings or cracks that could leak fat when it is rolled out.
4. Roll out the Danish pastry. To do this, there is a simple tour first: carefully roll out the butter dough packet into an approximately 20 × 40 cm rectangular plate. Fold a third of the dough over the middle third of the dough and fold the last third over it, so that three layers of dough are formed one on top of the other. The sheet of dough is wrapped in cling film. Put in the fridge for 20 minutes.
5. Then repeat two easy tours so that you have three easy tours in total.
6. Roll out the dough into an oblong rectangle (4 mm thick). Spread the liquid nut butter evenly on the dough with a brush. Sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon mixture and roll up tightly from the long side. Cut into 4–5 cm wide pieces and use the floured handle of a wooden spoon to press the roll down to the bottom. Place the Franzbrötchen on a baking sheet lined with baking paper so that they are about 5 cm apart. Cover and let rise for another 30 minutes
7. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200 ° C. Bake the Franzbrötchen in the preheated oven (center) for about 14 minutes until golden brown. Take out of the oven and let cool down on the baking sheet. Dust with icing sugar if you like.
A recipe from the new baking book from star pastry chef Christian Hümbs “Bake yourself around the world: 90 sweet recipes against wanderlust“was published by DK Verlag, 224 pages, EUR 24.95.
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