I recently moved away from a grocery store that made my favorite doughnut ever.
The French Cruller.
If you’ve never had a cruller before, you are missing out.
They are sweet and slightly crisp on the outside, hollow and creamy on the inside.
I Love, Love, Love them.
Unfortunately, my new town doesn’t have a decent cruller. Well, not that I’ve found, anyway.
So, I’ve been dreaming of making these for months and today I finally got around to it. But I made them with a little autumn twist. Dipped in a spiced cider glaze, they are everything I was hoping they would be.
I know I have a tendency to get a little complicated with my recipes here, but I scaled it down a little for you today and just did cruller sticks instead of the full on doughnut because it’s a little easier.
Sorry for the over-complicated recipes, by the way.
It will happen again.
It’s just the way I am.
Crullers are basically just a choux pastry dough(think cream puffs and eclairs) that is piped out and deep fried.
The dough itself consists of just a few ingredients and is pretty quick to make.
Sticks are pretty simple to pipe out and fry, but if you’re feeling adventurous, go ahead and pipe out circles onto your greased parchment.
Oh, and do try and use a good cider, if you can. I love local, unpasturized ciders that come from nearby orchards in the fall. The flavor is just so much better that shelf stable juices.
Happy Frying!
- FOR THE CRULLERS:
- 1 C. Water
- 7 T. Butter
- 2 t. Sugar
- ¼ t. Salt
- 1 C. Flour
- 3 Lg. Eggs
- 2 Lg. Egg Whites
- Vegetable oil for frying
- FOR THE CIDER GLAZE:
- 1 C. Apple Cider
- ½ t. Cinnamon
- ¼ t. Nutmeg
- ¼ t. Allspice
- 1½-2 C. Powdered Sugar
- Place the water, butter, sugar, and salt in a large saucepan. Melt the butter and bring the mixture to a boil. Add in the flour and stir quickly with a wooden spoon until a thick paste forms.
- Continue to stir the dough over medium heat for another 2 minutes to cook out some of the moisture. The dough is dried out enough when a film begins to form on the bott
- om of the pan.
- Place the dough in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed with a paddle attachment to cool for 1 minute. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing in thoroughly and scraping down the sides after each addition. Add in the egg whites last, one at a time. The dough should be thin enough to drip off of the paddle in slow, thick ribbons, yet thick enough to somewhat hold its shape.
- If it seems too thick, add in another egg white.
- Transfer the dough to a large piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
- Heat a large pot with 2" of vegetable oil to 326 degrees. Make sure your oil is not too hot by testing the dough first to make sure it doesn't cook too fast.
- TO FRY: Spray a square of parchment paper(about 3"x3") with cooking spray.
- Pipe a strip of dough in a straight line across the piece of parchment.
- Tip the dough strip off of the parchment paper into the oil. It should easily fall right off into the oil. Allow to cook, turning once, until both sides of the cruller stick are a deep, golden brown.
- Remove the cruller from the oil and place on a paper towel to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough until all the cruller sticks are cooked and cooling.
- FOR THE GLAZE: While the cruller sticks are cooling, place the apple cider, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in a small saucepan. Bring the cider to a boil and reduce the heat to medium. Reduce the cider by half and remove from the heat.
- Add 1 C. of the powdered sugar to the cider and whisk until smooth. Add more powdered sugar as desired to achieve the desired consistency.
- When the crullers have cooled, dip the prettiest side into the glaze, place the cruller on a baking rack and allow the excess glaze to drip off. Repeat with remaining crullers.
- Allow the glaze to set and serve!
