recipes

Frøsnapper

Adapted from Cooking with Kathleen, aiming for the frøsnapper from Nielsen’s.

Mine (attempt 4) on the left, Nielsen’s on the right.

Makes: 12

A great frosnapper is relatively light and full of contrast:

• Flavors: Seed flavors balanced with almond filling
• Sweetness: Not too sweet overall and the sweetness isn’t evenly distributed. A touch of sweetness on the outside and more in the remonce, with less in the dough
• Textures: Soft inside with a little chew. Flaky exterior to the lamination. Sugar crunch from leaked and carmelized remonce

Attempt 4 was all done in one day, but it can be split across two with an overnight dough rise in the fridge.

Ingredients

Dough

• 3g yeast (1 tsp)
• 12g sugar (1 tbsp)
• 155g milk (150 ml)
• 3g salt (1/2 tsp)
• 1 egg
• 340g all-purpose flour (2 1/2 cups + 1 tbsp)

For the flour, it turns out fine with cheap flour. I think the lower gluten content helps. And there’s so many other flavors that the flour flavor doesn’t come through so much.

Butter block

• 250g butter (2 sticks + 1 1/2 tbsp)

For the butter, I use cheap butter with the cheese grater trick.

Filling (remonce)

• 65-70g butter (4 1/2 tbsp–5 tbsp)
• 80g sugar (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp)
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
• 60g almond flour (1/2 cup + 2 tbsp)
• pinch of salt
• cardamom, cinnamon to taste (about 1 tsp cardamom I think… maybe 1/2 tsp cinnamon)

I don’t keep marzipan around and it’s pricey but I had a bunch of almond flour I got on sale, so my remonce is based around almond flour instead.

A slightly loose filling is good. The caramelized sugary skirt around the base of Nielsen’s reference is leaked remonce.

Topping

• egg wash
• poppy seeds (it uses a lot, like 1oz or so)
• sesame seeds

Be careful when shopping for sesame: You want something with a mild nutty flavor. I had a bad batch using sesame from an Asian grocery, and I’m guessing it’s toasted.

Steps

Dough

• Bloom the yeast with the milk and sugar
• Mix ingredients and knead
• Let rise until about double (can be overnight in the fridge)

Butter block

• Form into approx 7x7 inch square (see Kouign Amann for tips on that). It’s important that it’s a square. It’s less important that it’s exactly 7x7.
• Chill after handling until it’s not in any danger of melting as you handle it

Folding

• Do the usual 3 folds, refrigerating between folds to prevent any chance of butter melt

Remonce

• Make it during the last fold’s chill, or while rolling out the dough (the gluten resists, so it’s handy to have something to do while it rests)
• Start with room temp butter. Cream it all together. You don’t want the butter melted, but it’s a real pain if it’s too cold so room temp is good.

Shaping

• Roll out to 30x40cm (preferably a little beyond that). The video says 60x30cm, but that’s not what she showed
• Let rest a little bit; it’ll want to spring back
• Spread the remonce on the bottom 15 cm x 40 cm half. It can be a pain to spread. Ok to use your hands and do final smoothing with a spatula or knife
• Fold in half lengthwise
• Seal the bottom edge by wetting the inside of the seam a little (why)
• Brush egg wash over top, spread poppy seeds all over. Also dust maybe 1-2 tsp of sugar
• Flip, brush egg wash, spread sesame seeds all over. Also dust ~1-2 tsp sugar.
• Roll gently with a rolling pin to press the seeds in and encourage it to flatten
• Trim left and right edges to neaten them
• Cut into 12 pieces
• For each piece, twist it twice and put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Press the ends down a bit. Place them touching one another (why). With them touching, all 12 could fit on one sheet; in attempts 1-3 they weren’t touching and needed 2 sheets
• After each sheet is filled, use a rolling pin and roll the line of top/bottom edges flat (why)
• Let proof 1-2 hours. I put them in my oven with the oven light on. It got warmer than I expected, which probably softened the butter so a little leaked out. That turned out to be good, since it caramelized some sugar on the edges

Baking

• 375-400°F for 18 minutes. That seemed a little underdone in attempt 4, though less so once they cooled. I set my oven to 400, but my oven thermometer only reached 375 even 15 minutes after the preheat beep (no convection, so it’s uneven)
• With two trays in a non-convection oven, rotate the pans halfway through
• Take out, let set for 3 min, then transfer to wire racks to finish

Keeping the shape

This was my biggest challenge. Most of these were in the batch that worked:

• Reduced yeast (2 tsp → 1 tsp): This definitely helped
• Rolling the seeded sheet flat before cutting, to squish the layers together: Not sure if this helped
• Placed them side by side: I’m pretty sure this helped
• Sealed the bottom edge with water: I’m not sure if this helped, but it was quick and didn’t hurt
• Pressed them into the parchment: I did this on previous attempts and it maybe helped a little bit, not a lot
• Rolling the edges flat once they’re on the tray: I’m pretty sure this helped
• Water to “glue” any edges that were lifting after the proofing: I have no idea if this helped
• Only 2 twists: trying to do more in other attempts I think partly caused the spring-back. Nielsen’s does 2 as well. When attempt 3 (3 twists) unwound, the advice I got from Claude was to twist more, 5-6 turns. Fewer worked better
• Chilling after shaping (proofing in the fridge): I tried this in one of the attempts and they still unwound. Proofing wants warmth and holding the shape wants cold, so the two goals pull against each other

Attempts

Attempt 1: Bad

Used a recipe that Claude found, but the recipe was just plain wrong – something like 30% hydration and I couldn’t even mix it. I had to work water into the dough to up the hydration, which took 30-45 min and was pretty frustrating. Then I did a filling that Claude suggested and tried making them without lamination.

Results:

• Without lamination, the dough isn’t very good at all.
• The filling was fine. It didn’t melt out, but maybe oozed a bit
• They really didn’t want to hold their shape, probably because the dough was too dry and stiff
• Something about the seeds didn’t jive with the filling in terms of flavor. Maybe I got the wrong sesame seeds? (This was shiro goma from Shirakiku)
• Overall, it wasn’t as light as Nielsen’s, nor as sweet

Things to change:

• Just start from a laminated dough I trust, like kouign amann maybe
• Research the filling aka remonce more
• Research the seed flavors

Attempt 2: Progress, but so much further to go

I started from the kouign amann dough and cut the butter at Claude’s recommendation. I also cut it into 8 instead of 12 and only used poppy, no sesame. Also used egg wash. I also waited plenty of time for proofing.

Results:

• Definitely lighter and flakier
• WAAAY too big. I think it’s because the KA recipe made more dough than the frosnapper dough, and also because I made them wider
• The little pans were too small for 4 each
• The flavor was pretty good but not really the Nielsen’s style
• They tend to unwind but I don’t really know why

Things to change:

• Adjust the dough amount properly
• 12 instead of 8
• Use multiple big trays, which means I gotta use the big oven ugh

Attempt 3

Switched to the dough and amounts from Cooking with Kathleen.

1. Not sure about the butter block size, I guess go standard for it
2. Also not sure about the rolled size. She said 60x30cm but that’s not what she showed in the video
3. She twisted once more than I did
4. 375 for 15 min, but they didn’t hold their shape

Results:

• Pretty good! Getting closer to Nielsen’s
• I didn’t use any regular flour, and reduced the almond flour a little
• I twisted maybe one extra time

Attempt 4: Amazing

Changes from attempt 3:

• Half the yeast
• Rolled out a little over 30x40
• Added sesame
• No flour in the filling, a little extra butter
• Sprinkled sugar when coating with seeds
• Packed side by side
• Rolled the ends down
• Sealed the edges with water
• 18 min @ 400-ish – a little underdone, rotating the pans halfway

Results:

• Amazing
• Once they cooled they seemed less underdone than I feared. With the same oven and temp, maybe go a little longer
• I froze them to reheat later, so slightly underdone is good anyway. If I were making them to eat right away, I’d bake maybe 2 min longer.

Next time:

• Probably bake in my convection toaster oven, which heats up MUCH faster. That’ll change the timing a bit

The recipe above is attempt 4.

References

• Frøsnappere (Cooking with Kathleen) (source for attempts 3 and 4)