DEARAW

Every couple of months or so, I have what I call a DEARAW (Drop Everything And Relax At Winnie's).  I am trying to provide a time and space for MS staff at Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ) to gather together in a different setting and for a purely social purpose.  Yesterday, Friday, January 23rd, was a staff work day; a day to prepare report cards for the semester.  I thought it may be a good opportunity for teachers to spend some relaxing time after the day at my apartment.  There was also a Senior Talent Show in the evening, so this time could provide a nice reprieve between working on report cards and attending the talent show. 
On the previous occasions, my theme tended to be anything with nuts, since CAJ's campus is nut free.  I made peanut butter cookies, had peanut M&M's, regular peanuts or almonds in a bowl, and other snack type things.  
This time however, I thought I would try something different.  Many of the staff are not familiar with some of my 1950's Dutch cultural heritage.  (My parents immigrated to Canada in 1952.)  This time I thought I would make oiliebollen, which is like a Dutch cake donut. 
Here's how they are made:  

Yeast and warm milk.

First you warm up some milk and add yeast and let it do its chemical reaction thing. 

Flour, salt, apples and raisin mixture.

Next mix together, flour, salt, raisins and cut up apples.  I knew there were some of the staff that do not like the fruit, so I made a separate batch that did not have apples and raisins. 

Eggs and milk mixture.

In another bowl, mix together eggs and milk and add the eggs and milk mixture to the flour mixture.  After that you add the milk and yeast mixture.  The batch I made was very large, so it took some arm power to mix it all well.  Once it is well mixed, you let it sit for an hour. 

First ones out of the deep fryer.

While the dough is rising, you do need to heat up the oil.  This is the part where my apartment gained its new oil fragrance, which remains the next few days.  I do not have a deep fryer and was able to borrow one from a friend.  Thanks, Rie! 
I was also able to borrow an ice cream scoop (Thanks, Martha!) and used that to scoop up the dough and deep fry them.  Just before you eat them, you sprinkle on icing sugar. 

There were some left over...

As people came through the door, I would deep fry whatever their preference was, with or without raisins and apples.  By the end of the evening, I still had a quite a bit of dough left.  You cannot store the dough, so I continued to deep fry more oiliebollen until the dough was gone.  I let them get cold and put them in ziplock bags to store in the freezer. 
Over all, I believe it was a success.  Those who tried them, said they were delicious.  I was so glad to be able to share a bit of my heritage with the CAJ staff.  I am very grateful for all the work they do for our students.  I am blessed to see how God uses these staff members to make an impact on CAJ's students.  I work in a great place!