Hi folks,
my question is technique oriented as I am badly in need of correction and/or instruction. I cannot find any workable recipe for, "Egg Batter Dough" that once fried has the external texture and internal features that I'm looking for, its really quite the mystery to me and has been for now close to 6 years. So, I've come here looking for help.
So...
1. a deep fried dough, a pastry if you will.
2. the dough is an egg batter dough.
3. external texture is crinkly due to frying not due to additional items rolled onto it, eg. semolina, or polenta.
4. the dough is approx. 4-5 mm thick after frying.
5. when cool it is hard and firm, i.e. it does not collapse as if entrapped air has escaped.
6. the dough is rolled, filled, sealed, and blanched in a deep fryer, or perhaps oven baked.
What I've done so far.
a) tried various recipes from the web, to no avail.
b) take it back to absolute basics starting with a simple pasta dough (2 : 3 – flour : eggs)
c) modify this basic recipe by making a batter (2 : 1 – eggs : flour)
d) separate the whites and beat them to stiff peaks, fold in the yolks and flour to make a batter, then add the remaining flour to make the dough.
e) same as (d) but make a batter with the yolks and flour and fold the whites in.
f) same as (e) but swap out one of the eggs for water – makes the most excellent airy batter for dipping and deep frying things, really, top shelf.
Results.
:- plain pasta dough is firm but does not have the external texture I'm looking for.
:- the egg batters became progressively more leavened, soft nice eating texture when hot, but collapsed when cold.
:- the egg and water produced better results for the external texture, but same problem with the softening of the dough on cooling.
What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? My next planned step is to lightly beat the whites before folding them into the batter, but don't fully understand what I'm doing, I feel, in order to know where to turn to next. Would love some help. Cheers and thanks for reading this far.
