More desserts

With the excitement of Twinkies, and various chocolates in my last post, we didn't get around to deep frying the Oreos. This was a shame, because they are a staple of the deep frying world, and a signature dish at state fairs around the country and on New Jersey boardwalks.

I tried these last time I was in Wildwood, NJ, and they are quite good, although incredibly sweet and very filling. If you find yourself in Wildwood, one order of deep fried Oreos (7 or 8 Oreos) will probably be enough for too people. If you can eat a whole order by yourself...well, you might want to look around at the various shapes of the other people on the boardwalk; you aren't in great company.

The following night, I enticed a friend to come over for deep fried food, specifically Doublestuf Oreos. The great thing about these is how easy the batter is to make. It's just buttermilk pancake batter -- you only need to add water. I used 1 cup batter and 3/4 cup cold water, just like the box says for making pancakes. The recipe I used says to freeze the Oreos for 3 hours, but I actually found that wasn't totally necessary (i.e. I forgot to and wasn't willing to wait three more hours.). I did keep them in the fridge leading up to cooking them though.



I lowered them into the fryer with a spoon, to keep as much of the batter on the Oreo as possible, and that seemed to work really well. The underside of the Oreo ends up looking really good, because that batter hardens first and make a nice, smooth shell. The top side is still covered, but doesn't look quite as nice. I tried to photograph them all on their good sides. These take only a couple minutes and one flip until they are ready. Let them cool slightly and add a little powdered sugar if desired.

These were really good! the Oreo gets totally soft and gooey inside, and the chocolate and creme mix together really well. It's tough to say if it's as good as the Twinkie, but in the all important taste-to-effort ratio, these are one of the best so far.

There was one thing I didn't remember to try that I wanted to, and my friend had brought this up same idea as well. You know how every kid has at some point opened up two Oreos, then put the cream sides together to make a super Oreo with twice as much filling? Of course you do. It's such a common practice, Nabisco actually now makes Doublestuf Oreos. Well, since I had Doublestuf, I wanted to make a quadruple-stuffed Oreo and deep fry that. Maybe next time.


Given the ease and success of these, We got out a leftover Twinkie, and dipped it in this batter and fried it up. It was just as good as the night before! We also did that with a fun size Milky Way bar, and that also was delicious. So, I'm gonna keep experimenting with different batters, but for sweets, buttermilk pancake batter is really good, and definitely the easiest so far. This could become my go-to coating. Perhaps a future post will feature a more scientifically rigorous comparison of the various batters.

After the Oreos, the Twinkie, and a Milky Way, we pulled some strawberries out of the fridge and tried those. I didn't look up any recipes for this, but I am sure you could find some. I just went with my gut, and cooked it at the same heat until the shell was golden brown. The strawberries were definitely interesting -- very warm and soft under the delicious shell.

I think adding some chocolate into this process somewhere might improve them. Perhaps I should freeze chocolate covered strawberries, then deep fry them, or simply dip the deep fried strawberries in chocolate sauce. I think either of those options would be great and would give these strawberries the extra "oomph" they need to reach that next level.

Keep coming back, because my next post will cover various appetisers. I don't want to give too much away, but it went very well! And I'll have more pictures!