Sneeuwster and Advocaat a Dutch Treat for Easter

Easter is coming and so are, at Easter, the ‘sneeuwster’ (snow star) and ‘advocaat’ (a Dutch liquor).

The sneeuwster is a typical Dutch pie with whipped cream and advocaat that used to be popular at Easter. In early days people were a bit easy with children and alcohol and often made an exception for holidays so we always got a piece of sneeuwster at Easter, a treat we loved. At home advocaat was always made by my mum at Easter and my dad baked the sneeuwster. My dad always baked apple pie, butter cake, oliebollen, cake. You name it, he made it. My mum preferred to cook and prepare, 7 days a week, a three course menu and always with a lot of vegetables from our garden. We as children had to learn to cook and bake at a young age and we still like to do that.

For this Easter, I looked up my mums advocaat recipe and my dads sneeuwstar recipe because without advocaat no sneeuwster.

Actually you make advocaat with a special Dutch brandy, but that is, just like advocaat, outside the Netherlands not or barely not for sale. Replaced by another brandy, it can be less tasty for not every brandy is suitable so I have replaced the brandy with vodka. Vodka is generally available and a good alternative.

What is advocaat? Advocaat is difficult to translate because the English translation for advocaat is lawyer so I wanted to know where the name came from to translate it right. There are several explanations, but I found the most funny explanation on Wikipedia where you can read:

“Advocaat is the Dutch word for "lawyer". As the name of the drink, it is short for advocatenborrel, or "lawyer's drink", where borrel is Dutch for a small alcoholic beverage consumed slowly during a social gathering. According to the 1882 edition of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal (Dictionary of the Dutch Language), it is "zoo genoemd als een goed smeersel voor de keel, en dus bijzonder dienstig geacht voor een advocaat, die in 't openbaar het woord moet voeren" ("so named as a good lubricant for the throat, and thus considered especially useful for a lawyer, who must speak in public”). So I just decide to keep the Dutch name: Advocaat. I couldn’t use eggnog as translation for advocaat is certainly not eggnog.

What do you need:

For the advocaat:
12 egg yolks at room temperature
25 gr. Homemade vanilla sugar (this is made by cutting a vanilla stick and putting it in a jar of sugar. Set aside for at least a few weeks and shake it regularly) or a store bought sachet of vanilla sugar
150 gr caster sugar
Pinch of salt
300 ml of vodka at room temperature

Tools:
Stainless steel or glass dish that fits in a pan (au bain marie)
bowl
Pan
Garde
Sieve
Glass jars
Measuring cup
Temperature meter (option)
Ice cubes (option) you need ice cold water
Scale
ice tray (option) for the egg whites

For the snow star:
Ingredients:

Filling:
400 to 500 ml advocaat
400 ml cream preferably 40% or more fat
Whip-it or another stabilizer if your whipped cream has a lower fat percentage than 40%
2 to 3 tablespoons of icing sugar

Cake:
5 eggs at a temperature of 37 ° C
175 gr self-rising flour
175 gr of sugar
Pinch of salt

Topping:
powdered sugar

Tools:
Baking paper
Butter and flour or baking spray for greasing springform or baking spray
Springform ⌀ 26 cm
Oven
Mixer
Bowl
Spatula
Sieve
Dental floss or knife
Skewer
Scale

This recipe is about 700 ml advocaat and you can keep it in the fridge for about 2 a 3 weeks.

Split the eggs. Collect the egg yolks in the stainless steel / glass bowl. Save the egg white, you can use this later to make a pavlova, merengue, or whatever you like, I have hazelnut pastries on my list. You can freeze egg white very well, I freeze it as ice cubes 1 egg white is 1 or 1.5 ice cube.
Weigh the sugar, vanilla sugar and add a pinch of salt.
Measure 300 ml of vodka.
Add the sugar, vanilla sugar and pinch of salt to the egg yolks. Stir the yolks and sugar and add the vodka. Keep stirring for a while with a whisk to dissolve the sugar. In the meantime, heat a pan with some water. Once the water is boiling, place the bowl with egg mixture over the boiling water. From now on keep stirring, stirring over the bottom and sides of the whole dish, the egg mixture should not solidify! Stir until the mixture has reached a temperature of 65 ° Celsius, do not heat higher than 70 ° C because then the alcohol starts to evaporate. If you do not have a temperature meter heat until the mixture becomes to thicken Now remove the bowl from the heat source and place directly in ice cold water, add ice cubes to the water if necessary. Keep stirring gently even when the bowl is in the water. The advocaat must cool as quickly as possible. Sift the advocaat as soon as it has cooled down and store in in a glass jar and keep refrigerated.

The cake:

Preheat the oven to 170 ° C. Grease a spring form and sprinkle with some flour, covering the bottom with baking paper.

To get the eggs at 37 ° C, I put them in warm water at 37 ° C for about 10 minutes

Put the eggs, the sugar a pinch of salt in a bowl and whisk until the eggs turn pale yellow to white. Try to get as much air into the eggs as possible by moving the mixer up and down. To get the eggs white and airy you have to beat at least 10 minutes.

Carefully add the self-raising flour using a sieve to prevent lumps. Use a spatula and spatula quiet from bottom to top, certainly not stirring you have to keep the air as much as you can in the egg mixture.

Pour, as soon as the flour and egg mixture are well mixed, the batter in the spring form and bake in 30 to 35 minutes until done. Test with a skewer whether the cake is ready. Bake a little longer if the skewer does not come out clean. Once the cake is done turn off the oven and put the door ajar. Allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes in the oven. Then remove the cake from the oven to cool down further. I turn it upside down to reduce the chance of collapsing.

Once the cake has completely cooled down open the springform, remove the baking paper and cut the cake. This goes very easy with dental floss. Place the dental floss around the cake. Now pull the wire and cut the cake in two halves. Divide the upper one into 8 imaginary points and cut these points from the middle to the outer edge. However, do not cut to the edge but stop about 3 cm before you reach the edge.

Beat the cream with icing sugar until stiff, if necessary use a stabilizer to get a firm whipped cream.

Now cover the lower part of the cake with a thick layer of advocaat and then scoop the cream onto the advocaat. Make sure the whipped cream in the middle makes a dome. Place the top part of the cake on the whipped cream and lightly press the outer edge. Because the whipped cream in the middle makes a dome, the incised points will open and form a star. You can fill the openings with whipped cream (but is not necessary) and dust the cake with icing sugar. You now have a real Dutch tasty pie for the Easter.

Unfortunately, because of the advocaat the pie is not suitable for children. If you want to bake a pie for them too, then replace the advocaat by jam or jelly and fresh fruit.

Happy and tasty Easter.