Ahhh… Do you like snowballs and mallow tea cakes? Soft, mallow with chocolate coating? Then you’ll like these. In Scandinavia, usually called ‘Flødeboller’ or ‘Gammeldags kokosbollar’, these are often made with or without a base, with light or dark chocolate, and various flavoured fillings. In recent years, a lot of konditors have started making gourmet versions – and people have followed suit at home, coming up with great creations.Okay, so it probably isn’t the easiest thing to make at home. It’s also a bit messy. However, it is fun and it is really worth it.
40gegg whiteapprox. one egg white from a large egg – if using smaller eggs, weigh them
Mallow filling
75gliquid glucose
150gsugar
50mlwater
1tsplemon juice
seeds from one vanilla pod
100gegg white3 and a bit egg whites – but do weigh them
1tbspcaster sugar
pinchof salt
Chocolate coating
200gtempered chocolate of choiceI use 70% Valrhona, but a milk chocolate will also give a lovely and lighter result and is preferred by little people.
Optional: 1 tbsp vegetable oil
Instructions
Bases:
In a mixer, blend marzipan, icing sugar and egg white until you have a smooth mass.
Turn the oven to 180 degrees and line a baking tray with parchment.
You can either pipe out 16-18 dollops of marzipan and flatten them into round even discs using some icing sugar to ensure it doesn’t stick to your fingers – or you can use icing sugar and roll them, then flatten them into shape. Make sure the discs are even and not too thick (they will puff up slightly during baking).
Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool completely. These will remain slightly soft in the middle.
Mallow:
In a saucepan, bring sugar, glucose, water, lemon and vanilla to the boil. Using a thermometer, keep boiling until you reach 117-118 degrees. Be aware any less than this and your syrup will not set the right way and it will affect the result as the water will not have evaporated properly.
Meanwhile, get your mixer ready and lightly whisk the egg white with salt until they start to combine, then add sugar and keep whisking. Increase speed to high and start adding the syrup in a very, very thin stream. Once combined, leave the mixer on high for 8-10 minutes. It does take this long to get the thick, peaky mallow.
Prepare a piping bag with a star nozzle. Add the mallow filling and carefully pipe out mallow on each base, taking care to leave a bit of ‘edge’ free and they may sink slightly. Aim to have a good high top on each mallow. Leave the set for 5-6 hours or speed up the process by popping them in the fridge.
Chocolate coating
Tempering chocolate: If you are a dab hand at tempering chocolate, prepare it in your usual manner. If you are not sure about tempering, melt half the chocolate and then as soon as you have a hot liquid, add the other half and take off the heat and stir until completely melted.
You can also simply melt a chocolate covering or cheaper chocolate, although it might discolour slightly and not dry properly. It will still taste nice, so don’t panic if you are not sure how to temper chocolate. Top tip: Add a small bit of vegetable oil to the hot chocolate if you wish a thinner coating of chocolate on your mallow buns.
Place a mallow bun on a baking grid, just over a bowl. Using a spoon, pour over chocolate until coated, then move with a spatula to a different tray to dry. Repeat until done. You may have to pour excess chocolate back from drip bowl.
Decorate with freeze dried raspberries or sprinkles – or maybe add desiccated coconut for that snowball effect.
Notes
We recommend you do use a base for these. Some people like to use small round wafers, others simply use store bought round short bread type biscuits (look for something approx. 5cm in diameter or smaller). I quite like the ones with a soft baked marzipan cake base, as long as they are baked quite fine and these are the ones in this recipe. But by all means, skip the base-step and buy whatever you prefer – tuiles and round wafers work particularly well.Do make sure you have both liquid glucose as well as a digital thermometer for the filling, as you need an accurate temperature check. Also, you can’t do this by hand: you need a mixer with a whisk attachment.