Funnel Cake

I used to love going to the fair as a kid.  Riding on the rides, spinning and spinning until I felt like I was going to puke.  Good times.  Nowadays I can't handle the rides.  Seriously I get sick just looking at them which is weird because I totally love roller coasters.  But at least I can still enjoy the funnel cakes. Speaking of which, I haven't had the opportunity to eat funnel cake in awhile.

No problem, let's make us some funnel cake.  You in?  Sweet.  Found a recipe on Pinterest and have a back up batter mix I got from Butterfly for a school fundraiser.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 Egg
• 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar for making the batter and more for dusting 
• 4 cups of vegetable oil
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
• Food thermometer
• Funnel

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Then beat the milk and eggs together in another bowl.

Now is a good time to get the oil going.  I used my wok but you can use a pot or fry daddy to heat up the oil.  It's also a good idea to have a metal spatula with slits to pull the funnel cake out after it is cooked.  Trust me when I say you don't want to be hunting around for it while your funnel cake is burning to a crisp in the pan.

Next up pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients or vice versa and mix into a smooth batter.

Here comes the hard part.  Pouring the batter into the oil so that it forms that nice funnel cake shape you are used to getting from the fair.  After several attempts we finally figured out how to do it, well kinda.  Our first attempt we poured the batter from a liquid measuring cup.  This turned out be too thick of a stream and we also poured too fast which caused the batter to form a big central lump with scattered droplets.

The second attempt was a little bit better in that I poured slower resulting in a more cohesive unit, but the strands were once again too thick.

The final attempt was our best try.  The trick is to pour the batter in a slow steady rate with a funnel that will create a smaller stream.  You also need to pour in a spiral from the outside to the middle.  This seemed to keep it in a single unit with thin strips.

Then of course you dump a boatload of powdered sugar over the top and eat up.  Yum Yum!  Very good stuff, but now I'm really stuffed because of course we had to sample all of our attempts.  Luckily my mom was along to help me out or I just might have exploded.  We will definitely have to try again soon with the batter I bought from Butterfly.  Hopefully I will get even better at the pouring.  Wish me luck.