Vegan Nougat Dumplings with Plum Sauce
It seems that sweet main dishes divide humankind, at least that’s what a survey in our office says. I’m an absolute advocate of rice pudding, filled yeast pastries, or sweet potato dumplings (called “Schupfnudeln”) as the main course, so I jumped right in when it came to developing a sweet recipe for our dumpling theme week. If you haven’t an exact idea when thinking about sweet dumplings, let me tell you that there are a lot of ways to prepare dumplings vegan and sweet.
Let’s start with an absolute classic: “Marillenknödel” (apricot dumplings) are coated with a sweet dough and served with melted butter. Also, from Austria, there are “Mozart Dumplings” with a dough made of quark, flour, butter, and egg, and whose insides are ... correct, “Mozartkugeln”! Sweets covered in dough – what an awesome idea! But Germany also has some sweet dumplings to offer, such as “Dampfnudeln,” yeast dumplings filled with plum jam.
We couldn’t decide between a chocolatey or fruity version, so we combined both: the result is vegan nougat dumplings with plum sauce. Our recipe is very simple to implement, but we still have a few tips for you.
For this recipe, you need vegan nut nougat, which you can find in the baking section of bigger supermarkets. We don’t refer to chocolate bars, but real baking nougat, which is much firmer and consists of sugar, hazelnuts, cocoa mass, and cocoa butter. Just enter “baking nougat” in the search engine of your choice to find a few brands directly. Just make sure that it doesn’t contain milk powder. Another important ingredient is vegan quark. You can find it in many supermarkets and organic markets.
You should serve these sweet dumplings right after cooking as they taste best when warm. You can also let the dough rest in the fridge overnight and continue the recipe the next day. You can adjust the sauce depending on the season and use fresh berries instead of plums. We topped the chocolate dumplings with chopped and grounded nuts, which we simply pan-fried with vegan butter. If you’re a fan of breadcrumbs (like I am), you can also substitute the ground nuts with breadcrumbs which also tastes fantastic.
Vegan Nougat Dumplings with Plum Sauce
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 40 g (3 tbsp) vegan butter
- 250 g (8.75 oz) vegan quark
- 150 g (1.25 cups) wheat flour (type 405)
- 60 g (0.33 cup) semolina
- 1 pinch salt
- 30 g (2 tbsp) applesauce
- 15 g (1 tbsp) agave syrup
- 100 g (3.5 oz) vegan hazelnut nougat (baking nougat)
For the sauce:
- 500 g (17.5 oz) plums
- 100 ml (0.5 cup) water
For the topping:
- 2 tbsp (1 oz) vegan butter
- 50 g (1.75 oz) breadcrumbs or ground nuts
- 25 g (0.75 oz) chopped nuts
- 1–2 tbsp agave syrup
For serving:
- fresh mint
Instructions
Heat the vegan butter until melted and place it in a bowl. Add vegan quark, wheat flour, semolina, salt, applesauce, and agave syrup, knead into a dough, and let it rest in the refrigerator for one hour.
Form 12 small balls from the hazelnut nougat and chill them in the refrigerator. One ball equals approx. 1 teaspoon of hazelnut nougat.
In the meantime, prepare the plum sauce. For this, wash, halve, and pit the plums. Place the plums with the water in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce over medium heat for approx. 20 minutes, stirring regularly. Then blend into a smooth sauce. Return it to the pot and keep warm, covered.
Take the dumpling dough out of the refrigerator and form 12 small dough patties that are about the size of a palm. If the dough is too sticky, simply flour your hands well. Place the nougat balls in the center and wrap the dough around the filling to form a round dumpling.
Bring salted water to a simmer in a large pot – it shouldn't be boiling vigorously, but should always be just about to. Place the dumplings in the simmering water and let them simmer for 15–20 minutes.
Meanwhile, for the topping, melt vegan butter in a pan and fry breadcrumbs (or ground nuts) and chopped nuts until golden brown. Add agave syrup and briefly caramelize. Then remove from heat and let cool slightly.
Serve the nougat dumplings with plum sauce, the nut topping, and some fresh mint.
