Banana Bollen

My friend gave me four fingers of uncommon reddish skinned banana from her homewtown, Ciamis, West Java. We usually called it as pisang Kidang, or Kidang Banana. The flavor is also unique that you can feel the higher content of starch but less sweet than the usual banana. As it is not really tasteful to be eaten just as it is, my friend asked me to process it to another form of food.

And finally, I challenged myself to bake a batch of Banana Bollen! It was actually my second attempt in baking bollen, but the first batch was not really successful as I did not precisely measure the ingredients. Now that I have a baking scale, why don't I retry? :)

Talking about bollen, in fact, some of Indonesian are still confused with the name. Is it bollen or is it molen? Both molen and bollen are both words coming from the Dutch, yet Banana Bollen and Banana Molen are different foods. Molen means rotating machine that is used to mill, while bollen means bulb. So, if we refer to the meaning, the one I baked here is Banana Bollen. Banana Molen is another Indonesian food that used pastry to twist and cover banana.

I presume Banana Bollen is also a fusion Indonesian food, which its origin is coming from Dutch, Appelbollen, the apple bulb filled with raisins and cinnamon covered with puff pastry. The Indonesian version, which is a popular food in Bandung, Jawa Barat, is filled with a banana chunk, processed cheddar, and melted chocolate. Yes we can consider Banana bollen to be Indonesian food that is not so traditional.

For this occasion, I used this recipe with some modifications. It is for 16 bulbs, but I make the mini version so it was resulting 32 bulbs. Happy cooking! :D

Banana Bollen
Preparation and cooking time: 3 hours
Yield: 32 mini bulbs

Ingredients:
- Pastry A:

• 100 grams bread flour
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 75 grams margarine

- Pastry B

• 200 grams bread flour
• 30 grams sugar, dissolved in 80 ml water
• 75 grams margarine

- Filling

• 4 banana, divide each banana to 8
• Processed cheddar, chopped into 64 mini match sticks
• Chocolate sprinkles

- Glazing

• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp milk

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Combine all ingredients for pastry A until homogeneous, form a ball. Let it rest in fridge.
3. Combine all ingredients for pastry B, knead until it becomes elastic and no longer sticky.
   
4. Divide pastry A and pastry B to 32 mini balls.
   
5. Roll balls B, put balls A on it. Fold the dough to half, and fold again to quarter (see pictures). Roll the dough.
   
6. Arrange one banana chunk, two cheese stick, and chocolate sprinkles on rolled dough. Carefully wrapped the filling as the dough is easy to break.
   
7. Arrange on cookie pan that is already lined with baking sheet.
8. Repeat step 5 - 7 until all 32 bulbs are formed.
9. Brush bulbs with glazing
   
10. Bake for 20 minutes
11. Rebrush the bulbs with glazing, sprinkle chocolate sprinkles on top. Bake for 10 minutes more.