Carnival sweet fritters

  • 1 hour (plus 45 mins rest)

  • Medium difficulty

  • 10 serves (about 30 fritters)

CARNIVAL SWEET FRITTERS

Ingredients for the dough:

500g PLAIN FLOUR (=17,64oz=4 ⅛ cup)

135g SUGAR (=4,76oz=⅔ cup)

3 EGGS

4 tbsp SEED OIL (corn, sunflower or peanut)

1 envelope POWDERED VANILLA YEAST (=16g=0,56oz=4 tsp)

1 ORANGE (only its juice)

Ingredients for the filling:

about 250g PLUM JAM or HAZELNUT & COCOA SPREADABLE CREAM (=8,82oz=¾ cup)

Other ingredients:

about 1500g PEANUT SEED OIL (=52,91oz=7 cups)

POWDERED SUGAR to taste

Method:

Mix all the dough ingredients in a bowl and knead to get to a homogenous result. Cover with a lid and let it rest for about 45 minutes.

After the resting period, flour a pastry board and cut a piece of dough. Roll a strip with a floured rolling pin until you reach a thickness of about 2-3mm. While rolling, turn the strip here and then.

Lay about half teaspoon of filling in the middle of the strip along an imaginary horizontal line, leaving some empty space between one filling and the following one.

Fold the pasta sheet so to completely cover the filling, then place a small coffee cup around the filling to cut a half-moon shape. You can re-use the scraps of the strip before, mixing them with the following piece of dough.

Start frying the fritters while making them.

Pour peanut seed oil in a high-sided saucepan (about ø 20-24 cm). Do not use steel and make sure to have half pot filled with oil as fritters have to be able to float in. Bring oil to a temperature of 170°C (=338°F), then plunge 2-3 fritters. Keep turning them with a perforated spoon. Once the fritters brown and their surface starts cracking, drain them with the perforated spoon and lay them on a rack to make sure they lose the excess oil.

Keep checking the temperature with a kitchen thermometer and make sure it doesn’t increase: if it does, remove the saucepan from the fire to lower it (or the fritters will brown outside but will not cook inside). Keep frying all the fritters as soon as they have been shaped, plunging maximum 2-3 at a time.

Remove the fritters from the rack and lay them in a tray covered with kitchen paper.

Once cooled down, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Carnival sweet fritters are compulsory on Fat Thursday: traditions need to be respected!