Watching one of my favorite German TV shows, "Das Perfekte Dinner" where a group of 5 people go to each others homes and try and cook a perfect dinner, the subject of Schneeballs came up. The show this week was in Bamberg, and all of the people were laughing and saying how dry and disgusting they were. Their descriptions made me laugh of course.
Having tried Schneeballs and found them to be a horribly, dry waste of my money, thought it would be fun to see what others think.
So, Yay or Nay?
nay Nay NAy NAY!!!!!!
I find them a blob.
My wife thought she had to eat the whole thing and it made her sick - too much. Tasteless and messy.
And she's only little.
Nope - done that, got the t shirt. Don't need to do it again.
We agree with the TV.
Nay! I've tried them twice in case I just got a bad one the first time. Dry and tasteless is right. What a waste, and hard to eat on top of it.
Contrary opinion... I had one with strawberry icing and a jam filling that I quite enjoyed. It was, however, too big for one person to eat by themselves.
Schneeballs belong, together with apple rice, to my childhood traumata. I always wanted to take the name literally and to throw them at the baker but I never dared to.
Agreed, they are terrible. It's like someone didn't know what to do with a bunch of left over bits from making a pie crust so they wadded them up and threw them in the fryer.
DJ
I was so bummed that I didn't get to try them the last time we were in Germany. Now reading this, I am glad I didn't waste the money! Thank you for making me feel better :)
Add another nay vote. I had to try them at the Christmas markets in 2015. Awful!
We tried one once. We did not like it. Still, someone is buying them! They have forced out my favorite Mandelhörnchen from at least one bakery in Rothenburg. I have seen folks walk out with bags of them. Gary
These posts made me laugh.
The one I tasted was covered with, if I recall correctly, powdered sugar. I split one with a friend and the one bite was enough ...
Maybe they're the kind of thing that you have to have grown up with since childhood. Like grits. To this day, I don't like either of them.
I managed to find a mini schneeball in Rothenburg that was chocolate covered. I liked it. But, I also think the crust of the pie is the best part LOL.
They apparently are a popular tourist thing in Rothenburg. NO NO NO!!
Of all the wonderful pastries and tortes one can sample in a German cafe, DO NOT waste your money on a Schneeball!
We tried one in Rothenburg and couldn't choke it down! Ended up throwing it away:)
NO! Emphatically NO! As others have said, they are dry and don't even taste good.
We were in Rothenburg for the Christmas Market in December, and they were everywhere! Having already tried one on my first trip there, many years ago, I knew I did NOT want another one.
I was looking forward to the tasty treats from the pastry shops, that I usually enjoy while visiting there. However at Christmas they seem to be full of only those awful Schneeballs!
Nay! We only tried them in Rothenburg ob Der Tauber. We threw them away after 2 bites. Too many better things to eat.
Please educate me: what is a schnee and why do people eat its balls?
Makes me grateful I have to eat gluten free. lol
Never heard of it until now, good to know. I will never try one, what a waste of calories. There's so much more to try…
Funny. Just last night I was reading Rick's "Best Destinations Europe" booklet in which he discusses Schneeballen from Rothenburg (where they evidently originated). He said his friend there, Anneliese, has playfully tried for years to get him to write good things about Schneeballen. He said, "I put Schneeballen (which originated in a hungrier age as a way to get more mileage out of leftover dough) in that category of penitential foods - like lutefisk - whose only purpose is to help younger people remember the suffering of their parents." Anneliese only eats the ones from the Friedel bakery in Rothenburg.
Yay. Ok, let me be the first to defend the Schneeball. If I remember correctly, we tried one last December in Rothenberg. They reminded my wife and me of a balled up Angel Wing or Chrusciki. Being a chocoholic, the chocolate covered one is fine. You break them apart and eat it in pieces. Am I the only one that would eat more than one Angel Wing at their Grandmother's house when they were available?
Snowballs , Larry , Snowballs !! Eating them helps in cutting back their reproductive efforts .
Probably the only food product that has a sell by date , that is a week before they hit the shop . Based on what I've heard , they paint leftover ones gray , and ship them to Scotland to be used as shotputs in Highland Games .
This is a great thread...and Larry thanks for the very early morning chuckle. Having read all of this is all avoid the schneeballs on my trip,this summer.
So I went to Wikipedia and found out that Schneeballs have a shelf life of 6 -8 weeks. UNREFRIGERATED!!!!!!
We tried a Schneeball in Rothenburg ob der Tauber a few years ago, and we couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. It was really just dry and flavorless. Definitely nay. There are so many other yummy German pastries. My favorite is Apfeltaschen.
Yay, with a cup of tea!
They must be really a specialty of Rothenburg (and area) as I've never seen them in other parts of Germany and I've never had one. From what wiki tells me, they are more like a giant cookie, thus, it's not a surprise that they are dry.
They must be really a specialty of Rothenburg (and area) The only place I've seen them elsewhere was Nördlingen, and even there, it was a smaller version served with ice cream. Hence, solving the "too dry" problem.
They sell them in Heidelberg and Rüdesheim.
They look like little pieces of pie dough stuck together into a ball, then baked, then more pieces are put on, and baked, and they keep doing this til they have a baseball sized ball of dried up dough. Sprinkle chocolate or other flavored sugar on it so it looks tasty, but don't be fooled as the dry dough explodes into dust when you take a bite.
They must be really a specialty of Rothenburg (and area) as I've never seen them in other parts of Germany
Those are traditional cookies in the protestant areas of Franconia (the former imperial cities like Nürnberg and the former Brandenburg territory of Bayreuth and Ansbach). In protestant villages and small towns there was a age-old tradition that on occasion of a christening, confirmation or wedding bundles of different traditional cookies including schneeballs and streusel slices had to be brougth to neighbouring families, to the head master of the local elemantary school and to the pastor. Already back in the sixties everbody wished they could get rid of that tradition but nobody dared to break up with it.
Personally, to this day seeing schneballs and streusel slices make me almost ill, since, being a child of the pastor, I was exposed to heavy overdoses of them. I never will be able to feel pity for those who eat schneeballs voluntarely and even pay for them. ;)
Well, I have indeed been educated by this thread. I would have thought that a schneeball was a game played on a schnee field by schneesters. Interesting.
schneeball was a game played on a schnee field by schneesters
no, no - that's broomball, an exceptionally fun game
Brilliant thread!
Thought I'd better post a couple of photos from my visit to Rothenburg two years ago showing the offending articles in the windows of bakers, since some folks don't seem to know what they are:
Schneeball Photo 1
Schneeball photo 2
Don't they look delicious, covered in chocolate, icing, caramel and such? Beware, for within lies a heart of dryness and blandness! Or so I believe as I had been pre-warned by Rick in his guidebook and never found out the terrible truth for myself.
