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Friday, October 19, 2012

Eating Snails

We have not resorted to eating gastropods from the garden, but we do have some delicious snails on the table.

Can you believe I actually baked something? These are schnecken from an old family recipe. The most basic of all cinnamon rolls, they are made with a simple pastry dough similar to pie crust, with cinnamon, brown sugar, and raisins rolled inside. Sliced into spirals, the little snails bake in a sugar-and-butter-lined pan to get the brown crunchy topping.

Our German schnecke is nothing like the enormous, yeasty, gooey cinnamon roll you find in America’s malls!
Cinnabon source
Ours are a little bit hard, a little bit dry, and just sweet enough. Perfect with coffee or tea, schnecken are supposed to be a breakfast food, but I eat them all day. Um, I mean, I could eat them at any time of the day.

I have resisted the Piemaker’s suggestions for “improvements” to this and all other family recipes (no chocolate chips, pecans, peanut butter, maple syrup, etc), because my grandmother lives in these schnecken. She also lives in marmorkuchen and streuselkuchen, German Christmas cookies, and many other precious recipes.
Hooray for grandmothers and old family recipes!
Katrina

2 comments:

  1. Hurray indeed for family recipes.
    Much more appetising than actual snails! We've both tried them once and that was enough. Pity, we're surrounded by the plant gobbling SOBs!

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  2. Yumm... I am all about trying new things but... well gastropods would probably not be one of them... The old family recipes, that would be in my forte, for sure... I have trying to get all my family recipes gathered up to make a cook book out of... yea! right! that is a battle that is just not being won...! lol!

    Those schnecken sound fabulous!

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