Funnel Vision

It’s late May now, past Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer. It’s a great time to get outside. We’re all getting antsy, and if we are going to see others, it’s sounding more and more like outdoors is the way to do that most safely. We probably won’t be heading to a county or state fair anytime soon, but for this post, I whipped up a carnival treat that can hopefully bring back fond memories of summer days spent outside: funnel cakes.

As I mentioned last time, before I could do any more frying, I really had to clean out the deep fryer. As funnel cakes are just dough, I want a nice, clean taste. While I’ll blanket it in cinnamon and sugar, I don’t want the lingering flavor of chicken tenders, cheese curds, or pork cracklins showing up as well.

After probably close to an hour of scooping out junk and scrubbing, I went from this:

To this:

You can actually see the bottom of the fryer! Because the “before” picture’s oil is so murky, in that photo, you can’t see the probably full pound of junk I later scooped out of the bottom — the burnt bread crumbs, charred remnants of cheese, and other stuff lost to the depths over many meals.

If the oil has been used a lot (and especially if it’s been used for seafood), I'll throw it away. You can, however, filter it and save it for use again — and for plenty of uses, that’ll be fine.

Other than the cleaning, there wasn’t any heavy lifting here. Another recent Aldi find was a ready-to-go funnel cake mix — with a funnel included! For $2, how could I not?

The package says it makes eight funnel cakes. As it’s just the Fry Gal and me enjoying these, I cut the recipe in half. We definitely couldn’t each eat four funnel cakes. We probably shouldn’t each eat two, but the amount we should eat has never stopped us before — and this gives me a few chances to practice. (I’m not sure anyone should eat one, if we really want to split hairs.)

This is a super easy prep: Add water to the included powdered mix and whisk. That’s it! And, of course, I also got powdered sugar, cinnamon, and cinnamon sugar ready. The dough is really just a vehicle for those.

It’s pretty much just cleverly-marketed pancake batter.

Once the mix is ready, you load up the funnel and pour it into the oil “in a circular motion, creating a lattice design.” “Circular motion” and “lattice design” seemed at odds to me, but I know what a funnel cake is supposed to look like, so I let that be my guide.

The way it rises up, takes shape, and bubbles (especially in a clean fryer with very clear oil) is mesmerizing to watch:

After 20 seconds, flip it over, let it go for 20 more seconds, and then you’re done!

The Fry Gal topped hers with a perfectly reasonable amount of powdered sugar:

 I went with a little powdered sugar, but I also went heavy on the cinnamon sugar:

I went heavier still on the third one:

Taste-wise, these came out great. Not much to say about the batter really; it, as expected, took a back seat to the powdered sugar and cinnamon.

They didn’t hold together as the funnel cakes of my past, however. The mass of funnel cake that came out looked and acted more like a pile of (delicious) fried noodles. I guess I didn’t quite master the “lattice” part. This would have been very difficult to support on the world’s flimsiest oil-soaked paper plate, while walking around fairgrounds. That said, there were some decent-sized clumps, and this way you could enjoy it in smaller bites.

I guess a positive benefit of this is that I don’t have to bite into the huge mass and have the reverberation of that crunch propel a cloud of powdered sugar into the air, which ALWAYS causes me to cough, which creates an even bigger cloud of powdered sugar and looks like I’m trying to recreate LeBron James’ pregame ritual. That’s also why I prefer cinnamon sugar to powdered sugar on my funnel cakes.

A keen eye might notice that we only got three funnel cakes out of half of the batter. That’s fine, because, to channel Yogi Berra, we were getting full and probably couldn’t have eaten a fourth. Perhaps if I’d made four smaller ones, they would have held together better, but “smaller” goes against the spirit of fair foods. And in any case, these were still nowhere near the size you get at the fair.

There you have it. Even without a carnival coming to your town, you can bring a taste of one to you, before heading outside to enjoy the warmer weather and longer days in plenty of responsible, socially-distanced ways. And what better way to fuel yourself up for an outdoor adventure than by downing 1,000+ calories worth of simple sugars?