Germknödel

Ingredients

• 400 g plain flour
• 7 g dried yeast
• 200 ml lukewarm milk
• 50 g caster sugar
• 60 g butter, melted
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 tsp fine salt
• zest of 1 lemon
• 8 tsp powidl or very thick plum butter
• 60 g butter, melted, to serve
• 60 g ground poppy seeds
• 40 g icing sugar
• 300 ml milk, for the sauce
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• 3 egg yolks, for the sauce
• 40 g caster sugar, for the sauce
• 1 tsp cornflour

Before you cook

• Grate the zest from the lemon.
• Melt 60 g of butter for the dough and let it cool to warm.
• Mix the ground poppy seeds with the icing sugar in a small bowl.
• Split the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds.

Steps

1. Whisk the yeast and one tablespoon of the sugar into the lukewarm milk and leave it for 10 minutes, until it foams.
2. Mix the flour, the remaining sugar, the salt and the lemon zest in a large bowl.
3. Pour in the yeasted milk, the two egg yolks and the melted butter, then bring it together into a soft dough.
4. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, until it is smooth, glossy and pulls cleanly away from the bowl.
5. Cover the bowl and prove the dough somewhere warm for 60 minutes, until it has doubled.
6. Knock the dough back and divide it into eight even pieces.
7. Flatten each piece into a disc in your palm and put a teaspoon of powidl in the centre.
8. Gather the dough up over the filling, pinch the seam shut hard and roll the dumpling smooth-side up.
9. Set the dumplings well apart on a floured tray and prove them for 25 minutes, until visibly puffed.
10. Whisk the sauce yolks, the 40 g of sugar and the cornflour together in a bowl.
11. Heat the 300 ml of milk with the vanilla pod and seeds until it steams, then pour it slowly onto the yolks, whisking.
12. Return the sauce to the pan and stir over low heat for 5 minutes, until it thickly coats the back of a spoon, then keep it warm.
13. Bring 5 cm of water to a boil in a wide pot and set a steamer basket above it.
14. Lay four dumplings in the basket with a good gap between them, cover tightly and steam for 13 minutes.
15. Resist lifting the lid at any point, because the drop in steam collapses the dough.
16. Lift the cooked dumplings out and steam the remaining four the same way.
17. Prick each dumpling once with a fork so it does not deflate as it cools.
18. Pour the melted butter over the dumplings, then shower them heavily with the poppy seed sugar.
19. Serve two per person in a shallow pool of the warm vanilla sauce.