Top 11
Fried Dough Recipes

Closely related to doughnuts, Polish pączki are soft, round cakes made of leavened dough filled with fruit jam or preserve and deep-fried in lard or oil. They are traditionally associated with Carnival, especially the Fat Thursday which precedes the Lent period, but are also often served at weddings and other celebrations. The preparation is somewhat lengthy and requires time, patience and some skill. It begins with dry or fresh yeast which is combined with milk, sugar, and a little flour, and left to rise. Then, the yeast is kneaded with egg yolks, flour, sugar, and butter into a soft, elastic dough. Additionally, the dough can be flavored with vanilla sugar, grated lemon rind, and a small amount of liqueur – usually grain spirit or rum – which prevents the dough from soaking up too much fat. Pączki can be filled with fruit marmalade, rose marmalade, almond and nut paste, or pudding. This can be done before or after frying, depending on the recipe. The next step is frying the pączki in lard or deep oil until they develop a golden brown color with a signature pale yellow ring in the middle. Finally, pączki are dusted with powdered sugar, glazed or iced, and served while still soft and fresh.Expand

Picarones, a Peruvian dessert, are made by blending sweet potato and pumpkin into a dough infused with anise and brown sugar. Once the mixture rests and rises, it's shaped into rings and deep-fried until golden and puffy. These doughnut-like treats are then drizzled with chancaca honey, a syrupy concoction infused with cinnamon, cloves, and orange juice.Expand

Often dubbed as Hungarian pizza, lángos is a popular street food made with soft dough that is typically shaped into rounds and fried until golden. The basic dough is made with only flour, yeast, water, salt, and sugar, but additional ingredients such as milk, potatoes, sour cream, and even eggs may be added as well. Lángos can also have a filling, most often cabbage or cheese. It is served warm, whether just sprinkled with salt, or rubbed with garlic, spread with garlic butter, sprinkled with garlic water, or topped with sour cream and grated cheese. Other possible toppings include ham, sausage, mushrooms, cabbage, and many more.Expand

The signature dessert of New Orleans, beignets are considered as a kind of doughnut or a fritter that is traditionally prepared from pâte à choux. Scoops of it are dropped into the hot oil and fried until golden brown and crispy when they are transferred onto paper towels to drain. Arranged on plates in orders of three and piled sky-high with sugar, for serving, they are typically paired with café au lait which is a blend of dark roast coffee, chicory, and hot milk.Expand

The basic churro recipe is nothing more than flour, water, salt, and oil, while sugar is for dusting only. The preparation starts with making the dough. Flour is added to a pot of boiling water and mixed until the dough has formed. Once cooled, the dough is placed inside a special syringe called churrera that is fitted with a star-shaped nozzle. Next, the dough is pressed into the sizzling oil in either long, straight sticks, or into spirals or curls. While they are frying the churros will turn golden at which point they’re removed from the oil and placed on paper towels to drain. They are then cut up into smaller sticks, dusted with sugar, and served while still hot. These fried dough sticks are typically eaten for breakfast and are usually paired with either chocolate, dulce the leche, or coffee and milk, all three of which are intended for dunking, not drinking. Churros — sold predominantly in churrerías, specialized churros shops — are popular not only in Spain but across Latin America, as well as parts of United States. They can be plain, have various fillings, or be topped with different glazes. Depending on the region, these crispy treats will have a different preparation method and are known under various names. For example, porra is a bigger churro variety and is prepared with either yeast or baking powder, while tejeringos, which are native to Cádiz, Grenada, and Málaga are traditionally ring-shaped.Expand

Fritule, sweet round fritters from Dalmatia are a festive treat, traditionally prepared for Christmas and carnival time. The typical fritters are made with a yeasted dough that can be enriched with eggs, although in the past, it was more commonly prepared with choux pastry that could also include potatoes. However, today, it is frequently prepared with a looser dough that has yogurt and baking powder as ingredients instead of yeast. The key ingredient that needs to be included no matter what dough is used is alcohol, typically brandy — but rum or white wine are also an option — which helps the fritters not soak up as much oil during frying. Nuts, grated apples, spices, and citrus peels are often added to the dough for more flavor and moisture. Traditionally, fritule were fried in lard, but nowadays, oil is typically used. Once fried, fritule are left to drain on paper towels, and while hot, they are traditionally rolled in granulated or powdered sugar. Still, they can be drizzled with honey or fruit jams, even chocolate, or sprinkled with cinnamon. Expand

This recipe adapted from the gastronomy book Turkish Cuisine With Timeless Recipes shows how to prepare lokma fritters the traditional way. Expand

A wintertime treat typically consumed for Christmas and New Year's in the Netherlands and Belgium, oliebol is deep-fried snack made from a batter consisting of flour, milk, eggs, either yeast or baking powder, and often sugar. Additional ingredients can be added as well, such as dried fruits, most often raisins and sultanas, candied peel, apples, lemon zest, and even beer. Once fried, the oilebollen are sprinkled with powdered sugar and should be served warm. Unlike in the Netherlands, in Flanders, they are called smoutebol, and were traditionally fried in lard and not oil.Expand

According to The Oxford Companion to Food, a doughnut is a "deep-fried ball or ring of soft dough". The dough is typically yeast-risen and is made with flour, butter, eggs, sugar, milk, and salt, often flavored with vanilla. Alternatively, there is also a cake dough version which is leavened instead with baking powder. Most typically, the dough is shaped into rings by either cutting it out of the dough with a doughnut or a cookie cutter or by gluing the ends of a long and thin rolled piece of dough, which is the less often used method of the two. Besides the ring-shaped doughnut, another popular doughnut type is the filled doughnut which has a filling injected directly into its center after baking. Other popular shapes include Long Johns, dutchies, doughnut holes, and twists, often referred to as crullers. The shaped doughnuts are fried in hot oil, and then can either be sprinkled with regular of powdered sugar or spread with various glazes and icings, and topped with sprinkles, fruits, coconut, or chopped nuts.Expand

Crunchy, brittle and full of flavor — this, in a nutshell, is chiacchiere, an Italian deep-fried pastry most commonly prepared during carnival and other festive occasions, such as Christmas, New Year and Easter. Made with the simplest ingredients possible — flour, eggs, sugar, salt, and butter — these golden bites still manage to be packed with scents and flavors. Mostly, this can be linked to the fact that the dough is enhanced with lemon or orange zest and liqueur such as the Italian grappa brandy, white wine, rum or Marsala wine. The preparation starts by mixing flour, eggs, egg yolks, butter, salt, sugar, lemon or orange zest, and liqueur, and kneading them into a firm dough. The dough is left to rest shortly, and then it is rolled into thin sheets and cut using a fluted pastry wheel which makes distinctive zigzag edges. Sheets of dough can be cut into rectangles or rhombi, often with an additional incision or two in the middle, or into long strips which are sometimes tied into loose knots. The next step is frying, which is usually done in vegetable seed oil or olive oil. After being drained on paper towels, chiacchiere is sprinkled with icing sugar and served.Expand