Funnel Cakes

Our fair comes to town every October. When I was younger, it was the highlight of my year. I never understood why my mom chose to stay home while my dad and I practically made ourselves sick on the rickety rides and fried food. I get it now. It’s lame, it’s crowded, and it’s overpriced. Spencer and I went for the first few years of our marriage and every year we’d walk away mad at ourselves that we spent the money. The one thing we never regretted? A funnel cake.

Funnel cakes are just fried dough, like a misshapen doughnut covered in powdered sugar. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them outside of a fair until yesterday when I fried up a couple in my own kitchen. You know I don’t like to fry things often but sometimes you just want a funnel cake.

They were so much simpler than I expected! The dough was a snap to put together and since there’s no rising, you can fry them right away. It took me no time to whip these up. They were the perfect extra-special afternoon snack. Crisp on the outside but nice and soft on the inside. Everything a funnel cake should be, pretty much.

A couple notes: I don’t own a funnel so I used a pastry bag with the end snipped off. It worked fine but I recommend only adding a cup at a time to the bag because the dough will leak out of the bag while you’re working. I also don’t own a thermometer so to test the oil I just dropped a teeny bit of dough into the oil. If it floats to the top pretty quickly, that means the oil is ready.

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Funnel Cakes

Servings: 8 6-inch cakes

Ingredients

• 6 cups vegetable oil or shortening for frying
• 1 1/2 cups 12 ounces milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups 8 1/2 ounces all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons 7/8 ounce sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup 3 ounces powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Heat oil or shortening to 375F in a very deep, heavy pan with at least 3-inch-deep sides.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the milk and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Stir into the egg mixture until smooth.
3. While covering the funnel hole with 1 hand, pour in 1 cup of batter. Star from the center of the frying oil and, in a swirling motion, pour batter in concentric and overlapping circles to make a 6- or 7- inch round.
4. Fry on both sides until golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm.

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