Hi everyone, I'm Gemma Stafford and this
week on Bigger Bolder
Baking we are making traditional
crullers.
Here's how to do it.
So crullers are pastries that
are fried just like a donut.
They're really light
and absolutely lovely.
The dough is not used to dough, it's a
little bit different.
We're gonna make it on the stove top and
it's very similar to
what we've done when we made
churros where it's more of a choux pastry
than it is like a yeasted dough.
So here I have a heavy bottom saucepan.
I'm gonna turn on medium heat and into
this I'm going to add
in some ingredients.
My water, some milk, a little bit of
sugar for sweetness, a
smidge of salt for flavour
and some butter.
Now all I want to do is just let this sit
here and let those
ingredients melt and then
come to a simmer.
So a crullers origins are in Europe and it
kind of comes from France, Germany.
They're really popular especially in
parts of America that
have been popularized by like
German settlers, French
settlers, things like that.
So the Midwest these are really popular
and also in California.
I love these because it's a light pastry
and it's a mix of everything
I love about a professional
roll, a churro,
eclairs, things like that.
So there you go, the minute your mixture
comes to a simmer I'm going
to add in some all-purpose
flour and then with a
whisk we're gonna whisk it in.
It'll be a bit lumpy and
porridge-y looking for like a second.
Bring it together and then I switch out
my whisk for a wooden
spoon and all we want to
do is just cook it for
around a minute here.
The pastry will come together in a bowl
and we just want to cook
it a little bit for less
than two minutes just to
let that flour cook out.
Okay this is looking good, we're not
trying to get any color on
it or anything like that.
Lovely lovely, let's take it off the heat
and follow me over to the countertop.
Before we start the next step I did let
this mixture cool down
for a little bit just so
it's not as hot coming from the stovetop
and then I'm going to add
this into my stand mixer.
Now just so you know if you don't have a
stand mixer you can do this
step by hand, it's totally
possible.
You just need a little bit of extra welly
and I'm just not
feeling that today so I'm
using my stand mixer.
Now what we want to do is turn this on
with the k-beater
attachment and we're just going
to add our room temperature eggs one at a
time on like a medium speed.
Let it combine, you'll see the mixture
start to look like curdled
eggs, very common, always
happens.
One egg in, add in our other egg.
Now make sure your eggs are at room
temperature because if
these are cold and this is hot
you're talking scrambled
eggs and we don't want that.
So now a fun fact about this recipe, it's
actually been on the
website for almost two
years.
But the thing about it is when we post it
on social like Facebook if people go nuts
for it then we realized just recently we
don't have a video for
it, how do we not have a
video for one of our most
popular recipes on the website.
So that's where we have to get on this
and just show people how
easy it is to make this
recipe.
You know and if you follow me on social
you will see recipes that
aren't made into videos,
you'll see recipes that we have that are
just posts on our
website so make sure you follow
us on all platforms to keep up to date on
the new recipes that
we have coming out all
the time.
After your eggs just go in and add a
little bit of lemon zest.
This adds a nice bright
and light flavor to it.
Once the combined turn off your machine
and you'll end up with
a dough that looks like
this.
Not super runny, still
holds a shape when it falls.
This is the perfect cruller dough.
There's a fine line with this guy but I
have to say this is a
pretty awesome recipe.
So here's what we need to do, this dough
is soft and we have to pipe it later.
So I'm going to put it into this bowl and
I'm going to cover it with cling wrap.
Now you want to lay the cling wrap
directly on the
pastry, I'll tell you why.
If you don't it can form a
skin and we don't want that.
So we're going to chill this for a
minimum of an hour but
it actually can be made up
to 24 hours in advance
which is super handy.
I'm going to pop this into the fridge
right now and get it nice and chilled.
While our dough is chilling I just want
to make our glaze really
fast so we have it ready
to go because once our crullers are fried
we dip them in here,
let them set and they're
ready to be enjoyed.
So here I have some powdered sugar, I'm
going to add in a little
bit of milk into this and
vanilla extract.
Now this recipe is my basic vanilla glaze
recipe, it works well
for so many things but
it just gives these little crullers a
lovely little kiss of
sweetness and a hint of vanilla
at the very end.
There we go, this is a good consistency
for us to dip our crullers into.
So I made a choux pastry ahead of time,
it's been lovely and
chilled and now it's really
nice and thick so perfect for piping.
It's in a piping bag fitted with a nice
big star nozzle to get
those iconic ridges on
our cruller.
Here, I've got ready a little bit of parchment
paper, some squares with
3 inch circles on them,
all this information is
in the written recipe.
And you want to make those ahead of time
and just get them ready.
Now I have my trays here, I'm going to
put my paper down and
all I'm going to do is do
a circle around the perimeter of my
drawing and then I'm
going to seal the edges just
like that.
Just one circle.
So now I don't want you to start freaking
out in case you feel
like you're not the best
piper, just follow the circle, don't
overthink it, do it in a
swift motion and it'll come
really easily to you
once you do one or two.
This recipe will make you around 16 to 18
crullers depending on
how thick you pipe them.
I have them on my tray here, I'm going to
head over to the
stove top and let's start
cooking them off.
So once they're piped you
can start frying them off.
So here I have a few inches of oil,
vegetable oil, canola oil,
sunflower oil, something like
that in a high-edged pan.
It's a nice heavy bottom good quality
sauce pan when you're
deep frying at home, so just
make sure of that.
I have it on medium heat.
Now I don't use a thermometer, I'm kind
of like old school
Irish mammy like that where
I just look at stuff and I
know when it's ready or not.
So what I do to check if the oil is
ready, I'm going to put
in this wooden spoon and
if it starts to bubble around that, see
that, when it starts
bubbling around, when it bubbles
like that it means that it's ready and
it's the right
temperature to start frying.
If it doesn't bubble enough, let it get
hotter, if it bubbles too
much maybe it's too hot.
I can start to add in my paper, now watch
this, you're probably
thinking you can't deep
fry parchment paper.
Here's what we're going to do.
Lay them down gently, just lay them down
gently into the oil,
face down, don't worry about
the parchment paper, I know you're
freaking out, I can hear you.
Don't
It's okay, we are going to leave these in
here for around a
minute, then I'm going to
go in and peel off that
paper and it comes straight off.
Once you remove their paper you're going
to cook the donuts for
around 2 minutes on each
side.
If you start to brown too quickly it
might mean that the oil is too hot.
Use tongs when making your crullers for
safety, it just keeps you
in arm's length from the
hot fat.
Remove the donuts with tongs and put them
onto a tray lined with
a baking rack and let
any excess oil drip off.
Now all you have to do is continue with
the rest of your crullers.
So if you're into donuts as much as I am
I have so many videos
for you to check out.
I've got cake donuts, I've got beignets
that have not been fried,
I have homemade churros,
so many delicious ones so
definitely check them out.
Okay lovely that's our last donut, now
while it's still warm
I'm going to head over to
the counter and dip them in our glaze.
Drop your cooler into your icing, give it
a turn and let any excess drip off.
Pop it back onto your cooling rack and
continue with the rest.
Give them a little shake to make sure
they don't have too much icing on them.
When the crullers are still warm when
they're coated the
icing creates a nice shell.
What is more satisfying?
Then a freshly cooked warm homemade fried
yummy donut
dipped in a
vanilla glaze, I mean it's
the stuff that dreams are made of.
The fun does not have to stop here I have
hundreds of baking
videos for you to check
out and as always I'll see you again next
Thursday for a brand new video.