Happy Mardi Gras, dear friends, or Pancake Tuesday as it’s called in Britain – but instead of pancakes, I’ve done krapfen this time, a delightful sweet originating (like so many others) from Austria which we always used to have when I was a kid back in Bavaria.
It’s a sort of doughnut, but with a jam filling instead of a hole in the middle, and actually it’s really easy to do, as I found out when I ventured to try it myself today for the first time. All you need is a piping syringe (if you haven’t got one, you can always cut the ready fried krapfen open and spread the jam on them like you would on a bun), and some patience for the yeast dough to rise…
Here’s what you need for 6-7 krapfen:
100ml milk, 30g sugar, 1tsp yeast, 2 egg yolks, 40g butter, 1tsp vanilla extract, 250g flour, 150g jam (apricot or strawberry), 1 pinch salt, 30g icing sugar, oil
(A tip: you can use the leftover egg whites in a gin fizz or some other stylish long drink, a perfect accompaniment to Mardi Gras krapfen!)
And here’s how to do it:
Take the milk and the butter out of the fridge to warm up. One hour later, mix the milk and the sugar in a bowl with a hand mixer, add the yeast and stir in the egg yolks, butter, vanilla and salt. Stir in the flour with a spoon and stir until the dough is sticky.
Knead the dough on a floured surface with your hands for 5 minutes, then put it back in the bowl, cover with a tea towel and let it rest for 1 hour.
Then, make 5-6 balls out of it, put them on a baking tray laid out with baking foil and flatten them. Cover with a towel and let rest for another 30 minutes.
Heat up a lot of oil in a big pan (to medium heat, not too hot – as you can see from the photos, mine turned out a bit too brown) and fry the krapfen in it from both sides for about 3 minutes until they get slightly brown, then take them out back onto the baking tray, this time laid out with kitchen towel, and let them cool down for 10-15 minutes.
Then, inject the jam with the help of a piping syringe and sprinkle the krapfen with icing sugar.
Ready to serve to your loved one and/or kids and/or party guests, or to enjoy on your own while listening to some good old-fashioned New Orleans jazz!
Happy Mardi Gras everybody!!
Roberta Franklin 