Homemade Fasnachtschüechli

I want to lose some weight, that’s why initially I didn’t want to participate in Helen’s and Peabody’s doughnut event. As today is a special day – the 5th anniversary of my personal blog and Carnival Fat Monday in my old home town Lucerne – I decided to break my diet and go the whole hog by preparing some Fasnachtschüechli (typical Swiss Carnival pastries). In some regions of Switzerland they are also called Chneublätz which literally means knee (Chneu) patch (Blätz). The name originates from the time as the pieces of dough were pulled and stretched over the knee into their thin form.

Nowadays nobody makes this crisp pastry at home. It can be bought in every Swiss supermarket, but not here in Spain, so I tackled it by myself. I was a little bit scared of the deep-frying, I have no experience with that. It was easier then I thought. The only annoying thing was the frying smell in the house, but the crisp and brittle Fasnachtschüechli compensate all.

Fasnachtschüechli or Chneublätz ( a real tongue twister for foreigners ;-))
makes 12

Homemade Fasnachtschüechli

2 eggs
2 tbsp sugar
3-4 tbsp Creme
1/4 tsp salt
250 g flour
25 g melted butter

about 05, dl oil for deep-frying
Icing sugar

Whisk egg, sugar, salt and cream together, add flour and butter and knead until you have a smooth but not sticky dough. Let it sit for 1/2 -1 hour at room temperature. Roll it to a 5 cm diameter sausages and cut it in 12 pieces. Roll out with a rolling pin as thin as possible.

Homemade Fasnachtschüechli - dough
Dough after about 1 hour.
Homemade Fasnachtschüechli
1 piece of dough of about 40 g.


I tried the „knee“ version, but I failed. The border was still thick.

Homemade Fasnachtschüechli
Homemade Fasnachtschüechli - dough over the knee


The „rolling pin“ version is okay, as long you roll it out very thin. You can stretch the dough also with your hands like Strudel dough. Place the finished dough on a clean paper or kitchen towels.

Deep-fry the thin dough pieces one by one in the hot oil (170C), until golden, turn once in the process. The following slideshow shows how to deep-fry Fasnachtschüechli. As I have no deep fryer I used my Hotpan.

The dough will puff up!

Homemade Fasnachtschüechli - nice texture

Nice texture, isnt’it?

Drain on paper towels, when cool sprinkle generously with icing sugar.

Remarks: The dough could be a little bit sweeter, so next time I would add 1-2 tbsp additional sugar.

More recipes and entries in English.


25 Gedanken zu „Homemade Fasnachtschüechli

  1. This looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, and very well explained too!! It somehow reminds me of the oreilletes I’ve seen in here in Catalonia. Check them out!

    Lovely texture, it’s crying for a crispy bite!

  2. REPLY:
    I think this kind of pastry is eaten all over the world, but is known under a different name. ;-)

    Here in Andalusia I’ve never seen them, but I also was not looking for.

  3. definitely i cant pronounce this.but i could definitely eat a lot!! they look soo tempting….btw i already prepared my entry for your valentine’s blog event..just praying for a good weather so that i can finally take a picture of them :-)

  4. Sogar beinahe original übers Knie gezogen, so wissen wir nun alle was das Wort bedeutet, das habe ich mich schon öfter gefragt.

    Dafür lohnt es sich, mal kurz die Diät zu unterbrechen.

    lg

  5. Wow, those remind me of the „Elephant Ears“ we used to get at the summer fairs in the midwest!

    I know what you mean about not wanting to participate in the doughnut event…. all that fried goodness!

  6. Super Teile – auch ich kann den Rezeptnamen zwar nicht aussprechen, aber backen könnte ich das vielleicht. Obwohl, das mit dem Gewicht und dem Abnehmen geht mir so wie Dir. Ich hole mir noch schnell einen Krapfen, bald ist „Fat Monday“ ja leider vorbei.

  7. These remind me of a beignet we make in France for Fat Tuesday called „bugnes“. They are wonderful! Thank you for participating!

  8. Jesses, du hast ernsthaft selber Fasnachtschüechli hergestellt?! Ich erstarre in Ehrfurcht!
    [Sieht sehr lecker aus!!]

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