Bossche bol revisited

The Bossche bol – or sjekladebol’, as it is called because of the chocolate layer covering the XXL choux pastry filled with whipped cream – is an institution in Den Bosch and far beyond. And it has remained unchanged for at least 80 years. If you go to Den Bosch, you eat a Bossche bol or sjekladebol and know exactly what you’re getting.

Until now, that is. Because Jules Lauwerijssen of Royal bakery is breaking open the status quo, perhaps once and for all, with no fewer than five new flavours for the familiar giant choux pastry.

Sjeklade

And that makes Jules our very own Dominique Ansel, the French-New York pastry chef who developed the cronut in 2013, a fusion of the croissant and the doughnut that turned the whole world, including the rapidly copying pastry world, upside down and changed it forever.

Den Bosch is upside down thanks to five new pastries.

Whether Jules will change the world remains to be seen. But Den Bosch has certainly been turned upside down since the city began offering, alongside the bol with its classic chocolate layer, varieties with extra-dark 80% cacao sjeklade, salted caramel, summer fruit, lime, and white chocolate with raspberry filling.

Royal Bakery

For now, these exotic varieties are only available at Royal bakery, where, besides our personal favourite, salted caramel, the fresh lime flavour is particularly popular with the people of Den Bosch (soon also with limoncello). But who knows, perhaps 2017 will prove just as historic as 1938, when the original bol is said to have originated.

Is the Bossche bol actually geographically protected? (As far as the Ansel effect is concerned?)