Vegan curd bunnies

Easter is just around the corner and if you are still missing a recipe for a super delicious Easter pastry, I have just the right thing for you. These vegan quark bunnies do not consist of the classic quark-oil dough, but vegan crème fraîche, vanilla soy yoghurt and a little vegetable oil, which give the dough the necessary elasticity and fluffiness. The bunnies and chicks are baked super quickly and can be served wonderfully with coffee with the whole family.

Ingredients

• Flour: I used wheat flour type 550 in the recipe, but you can also make a mixture with whole wheat flour if you don’t mind a slightly darker dough or use spelled flour.

• Baking powder: This makes the dough rise nicely.

• Vanillin sugar: You can either use ready-made vanilla sugar or homemade vanilla sugar (leave 200 g sugar with 1-2 scraped vanilla beans in a screw-top jar for several days).

• Sugar: You can also replace the sugar with xylitol or erythritol for the dough, but I would use normal sugar for the coating, as it is finer and more flavorful.

• vegan crème fraîche: For crème fraîche I usually use Dr. Oetker Creme Vega, but you can use cashew nuts, cashew milk and lemon juice to make crème fraîche yourself or you can use another brand.

• Vanilla Soy Yogurt: For a more intense vanilla flavor, I recommend vanilla soy yogurt, as in the recipe, instead of the natural. However, if you don’t have a vanilla flavored one on hand, you can use a natural and make up for the lack of vanilla flavor with more vanilla sugar or vanilla extract.

• Neutral vegetable oil: All vegetable oils can be used here, but I recommend rapeseed oil due to the better ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.

You can find more ingredients and the exact quantities further down in the recipe .

Jump to Recipe

Preparation

• Combine flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and sugar in a mixing bowl. Alternatively: with a hand mixer in a bowl or a kitchen machine.

• Place the crème fraîche, vanilla soy yoghurt and oil in the mixing bowl and knead. In the Thermomix: approx. 1.5 min. in dough kneading mode. Alternatively: hand mixer with dough hook or a kitchen machine with kneading function.

• In the meantime, preheat the oven to 170 degrees top/bottom heat and line 2 baking trays with baking paper

• Place the dough on a well-floured work surface, rub the rolling pin to roll it out and, if necessary, rub your hands with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of approx. 0.5 cm. If the dough is too sticky and elastic: knead the dough again with your hands and knead some flour into the dough

• Place a small heap of flour (approx. 1 tbsp) next to the work surface and dip the cutters in it, cut out the rabbits and/or chicks one after the other with the floured cutters and place them on the baking tray lined with baking paper with sufficient spacing

• Then put the baking tray in the preheated oven and bake the rabbits/chicks for approx. 14 – 18 minutes. Bake until the ears (or beaks) are golden on the first cutters

• While the last baking tray is baking: mix 100 g sugar with vanilla sugar (alternatively: homemade vanilla sugar) on a flat plate and melt the margarine (or vegetable butter) (e.g. in a water bath melting bowl/melting pot or in a cup in a water bath)

• Take the bunnies/chicks out of the oven and let them cool down a bit. Then brush the rabbits/chicks with the melted butter and immediately press them into the vanilla-sugar mixture

Additional tips

• Choice of cutters: I used 8-12.5cm x 6.6-8cm cutters. The forms should not be too small, as smaller details of the forms can become misshapen or disappear during baking.

• Forms stick to the dough when cutting out or the dough cannot be cut out: knead the dough again and knead in some flour and roll out the dough thicker. If the dough is rolled out too thinly, it will stick too tightly to the form and will not release from the work surface or from the form.

• If you like, you can also add the zest of half a lemon or ½ bottle of lemon flavoring to the dough

Happy baking!