Would you be willing to share the recipe for Ferden?
Be happy to. Just like my mother-in-law's, courtesy of a young member of the German heritage farm community I worked with.
Ferden
Dissolve 1 pkg yeast into 1/4 cup warm water. Yeast should be active or fairly fresh. I think the water temp should be about 110F? May have to look it up; I usually guess with some water from the tap on wrist. Use large bowl the equivalent of those antique pottery bread bowls.
Add 4 eggs, beaten
3 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
4-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 cup cream
1 cup raisins (soaked)
Let rise 1-1/2 to 2 hours and fry in melted lard (I used Crisco), filled the pockets in my pan 1/2 full of Crisco, can't remember how much batter, maybe not quite full. You will have to experiment with the heat; I hit it right first batch on my electric stove. My MIL used to get her gas stove too high sometimes and one batch would burn a little.
There is a special way you are supposed to turn them to get them nice and round but I just used a fork to flip them over once, and they were perfect.
My MIL used to serve little bowls of sugar to dip them in. I bet a lot of people would like cinnamon sugar but my MIL used plain.
I looked at some packaged mixes you can buy; fried up, they looked the same but this is the real deal and worth the extra time. Also the cardamom adds a unique, subtle, nice flavor.