#TRADITIONAL ROMANIAN DONUTS

INGREDIENTS:

• Organic flour * between 500 and 1000 g, as you wish;

• Quality butter * 150 grams of butter per 1 kg of flour, also modified according to the amount of flour;

• 3 or 4 eggs * turn the egg whites into the meringue;

• Yeast 25 gr. for 500, 40 for 800, 50 for 1kg;

• Milk- a small glass;

• Sugar * preferably raw will be even more flavorful, for 1 kg you can put up to 250 g (for the recipe I made, according to personal preferences, for 800 g of flour, I used 170 g of sugar;

• Salt- 1 teaspoon;

• Vanilla * half a stick, or 2/3 tablespoon powder, or 2/3 essences;

• 1 liter of oil for frying, you can also add a tablespoon in the composition (optional);

• Cream * optional, one tablespoon;

• The peel of a lemon;

• Rum * optional, 1 tbsp.

METHOD OF PREPARATION:

Make a softshell. Dissolve the yeast with a tablespoon of sugar (put the sugar over the yeast and mix them - it will become a paste), add a tablespoon of flour, mix and add a small cup of warm milk, this is the leaven we need to make the dough rise. Always let the dough rise nicely, leave it to rise for 10/15 minutes, observe when it is ready, it will triple its volume and we can use it. Mix the leaven in a warm place with the eggs, sugar, salt, oil, cream, rum, lemon, vanilla, until the sugar melts. Add over the flour and knead all the ingredients well, together with the warm milk for max.10 minutes, then add the heated butter, always folding the crust. It is ready when it no longer sticks to the hands and it’s soft. In all, do not knead for more than 20 minutes. Let it rise in a warm place, you can put it next to the stove in a covered pot, and turn on the stove a little to heat the pot, it will grow faster.

After 45 minutes to an hour, it will triple in volume and we can prepare the sheets. About 2 or 3 sheets will come out 1 cm thick, do not make them too thin, to be full on the inside, otherwise if you make the sheet thin, the donuts will swell, but they will have air inside, so be careful! We spread the sheet, let it rest for 5 minutes and then cut round shapes with the glass soaked in flour and let it rise. After they have grown enough, they are fried in hot oil well, over medium to low heat, taking care to sit with the top in the oil, only this way they grow nicely. Leave to fry on one side and only then turn to the other side. Do not move the pan during frying so that the donuts do not have a white stripe in the middle. We leave them aside until they get a dark brown color, then we turn them, if we turn them when they have a light brown color, they may not be cooked enough on the inside. In the end, softshell we add powder sugar on top of them.

Good appetite and good health!