Whip up something new - Faworki

Well. I can't believe how busy work has been! Between that and Shane and everything else I haven't had a single second to blog! So sad! But I have been cooking and I have been reading, so there are a few interesting things coming up on my side.

Today, I want to tell you about is a Polish carnival tradition, faworki. Carnival refers to the time right before Lent in Roman Catholic countries and is characterized by a lot of partying, eating and drinking. Which explains this Polish tradition - faworki are deep-fried pieces of dough with powdered sugar on top.

Making them is really easy - explaining might make the process sound more difficult than it is. :-)

Fill a glass with egg yolks. It doesn't matter what size the glass is, some sort of medium-sized variety. Measure out the same amount of beer. Put these in a bowl and add as much flour as is needed to make a dough. the dough shouldn't stick to your hands, but be careful not to put too much flour as then it'll be too tough. This part just takes practice.

Roll out the dough so that it's very thin. Cut into strips and then cut a line in the middle of each strip, like so:

Heat oil in deep-ish pan. It should be enough oil so that the strips of batter can be covered in it and the process can be called deep-frying.

Pick up a strip of dough, out one end through the whole in the middle, to get a shape like this:

Deep fry, turning once, until golden. Once the oil is hot, this goes really fast so it's best to have all your faworki ready to be fried before you start frying. 

Dust generously with sifted powdered sugar.

These are seriously, seriously yummy and they're not as complicated as I make them sound. The most difficult thing about them, I find, is getting the amount of flour right so that the dough doesn't get too touch. Oh and also having the patience to roll the dough out to be really thin, I almost never do.

I don't know why I forgot to take a photo of the finished faworki, but I did, so here is a photo of what they should look like, taken from the web:

And what to do with all the egg whites, you ask? Why, make meringues of course! Beat the egg whites on their own for a while, then add the same amount of sugar, slowly and still beating. Then add the same amount of sugar again, slowly and still beating. And a teaspoon of potato starch (but I've omitted this and the meringues have been fine).  Let them dry in an oven preheated to about 100C for a couple of hours. I always take mine out slightly early because I like them all gooey! Yum!

Go check out the other entries over at Trish's, she's the host in February. And it's actually already high time to find a host for March. Any takers?

Also, don't forget to regularly visit Beth at Beth Fish Reads - she has a great Weekend Cooking event each week!