Last year I wrote a blog post on the twisted treat that my family makes every years for new years eve: Nonnevotten. I tried to standardize the recipe to measures of weight instead of volume and to standardize the process of making them to get more reliable results. If I want to improve on the recipe, I need to experiment a bit with the recipe to see if I can remove some of the uncertainties in the required quantities and perhaps even tweak the recipe a bit more. Before doing so, however, lets first look at the variations across recipes.
The amount of salt
As you can read in more detail in the original post, I am not certain on the amount of salt to use. The table spoons I used to make the conversion from volumetric measures to measures by weight (tablespoons vs. grams), hold 21 g of fine salt per spoon. In the Netherlands, however, a tablespoon holds only 15 g. This meant that relative to the amount of flour, there will be either 2.1% (baker’s) or 1.5% (baker’s) in my recipe.
To egg or not to egg?
The other uncertainty in the recipe is whether or not to add eggs and if so, how many? In the table below, I have summarized all (unique) recipes that I could find online. In general there is quite some variation. Just as with Oliebollen (or any other recipe people make at home), everyone seems to have their own variation on the theme.
To calculate the quantity of eggs used in the recipes, I assumed medium sized eggs at 57 g/whole egg and a total of 30 eggs/l (the Smulweb recipe uses whole eggs measured in volume). Half of the recipes use eggs often in combination with quite a hefty amount of butter. These heavily enriched doughs probably have a fairly soft texture. Interestingly enough, according to this page, the nonnevot elected best of the year (from a bakery in the south of Limburg) does not have any eggs. Also, the website for tourism to the south of Limburg has no eggs in the recipe either. Perhaps the use of eggs varies by region. Given that my grandma came from Sittard, in the very south of Limburg, I will opt for not using any eggs for now.
Also, keep in mind that most of the recipes listed below are of unknown origin. I doubt they are all original creations, but the sources are never listed. Some recipes at least mention the locale or history of the recipe (“I live in Sittard, and got this recipe from my grandpa”).
| My 2022 version | Susana Retz | Taart Maken.com | Albert Heijn | Smulweb | Manzjare | Visit Zuid-Limburg | Rudolph van Veen | Eef kookt zo | Gommans Bakery | Marijke Sterk | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100 % | 100% |
| Dried yeast | 3 % | 4 % | 5 % | 1 % | 3 % | 3 % | 2.9 % | 2 % | 2.3 % | 3.3 % | 2.8 % |
| Whole milk | 52 % | 52 % | 36 % | 42 % | 42 % | 42 % | 52 % | 26 % | 26 % | 42 % | 52 % |
| Bleached brown sugar | 8 % | 5 % | 10 % | 15 % | 10 % | 5 % | 7.5 % | 15 % | 16.7 % | 5 % | 15 % |
| Butter at room temperature | 10 % | 10 % | 20 % | 25 % | 25 % | 20 % | 12.5 % | 35 % | 33.3 % | 20 % | 20 % |
| Salt | 2.1 % | 0.7 % | 0.5 % | 0.7 % | 1.5 % | 2.0 % | ??? | 1.4 % | ??? | 2.0 % | 1.4 % |
| Vanilla sugar | 1.6 % | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1.6 % |
| Eggs | – | 11 % | 11 % | – | 34 % | – | – | 22.8 % | 19 % | 11.4 % | 22.8 % |