This was our morning tastiness…

These are the most delectable little puffballs of dough you will ever taste! And they are insanely easy to make. This is a fun recipe to get the kids to help you with, too. More on that later.

First, the ingredients for the dough:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup flour

4 eggs

grated peel of 1 orange (or substitute peel of 2 lemons)

Grab a saucepan and melt the butter, brown sugar and salt along with 1 cup of water in it. When it just starts to boil, stir in the flour and take the pan off the heat. A wooden spoon works well because it gets pretty thick and you’ll need something you can really bear down with when you stir. At this point, the “dough” is going to look awful.

Now don’t panic at what I’m going to tell you to do next. I almost did. But things will be okay…

Beat in the eggs, one at a time. “What?” you say. Yep, I know it sounds odd to just add raw eggs to something hot. Everything I know about egg science says that they need to be tempered first or they will start to scramble.

Don’t worry. They don’t. I don’t understand the eggy magic that happens, but this actually does work. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures because I was busy giving my forearms a good workout with all of the stirring. I’ll try to make these again soon and add pics. Just trust me and stir!)

Add the first egg. Stir like crazy. At first, that awful dough looks even more awful. It’s lumpy and gooey and doesn’t look like anything you would ever be able to eat. But then…the dough starts to suck up all of the eggy goo and you’re ready for egg #2.

Repeat this will all four eggs, then mix in the grated peel of your choice and you’ll end up with dough that looks like this:

Now you’re ready to cook them. Pour about 1 inch of vegetable oil into another saucepan and heat it up to 350 F. If you don’t have a candy or deep-frying thermometer, just take a tiny drop of the dough and test it occasionally until the dough floats when you drop it in.

When you’re ready, start with a small amount of dough for each bunuelo like this…

This recipe makes about 60 bunuelos if you use a small amount of dough for each. They puff up, so even though they look tiny when you drop them in, don’t be tempted to make them larger or they will end up raw in the middle.

Working in batches of 6-10, depending on the size of your pan, cook the bunuelos, turning them in the oil so they cook evenly.

Mmm, they are starting to look yummy. See how they are puffing up? They are a nice light gold, but they aren’t finished yet. You’ll notice the dough from the middle start to burst out and make them into odd shapes as they cook. Be patient. It’s worth the wait.

Now these are dark gold and ready to come out of the oil. Are you getting excited yet? It gets better…

Drain them on some paper towels for a minute and then…

Cover them in cinnamon sugar! Use about a 1/2 cup of sugar with 1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, mix it up and put it in a bag. Grab a helper or two and get ready to shake.

Here are my helpers.

They are expert shakers, as Big A demonstrates.

Like I said, you should end up with about 60 when you are finished. Unfortunately, my helpers also know how to help themselves to them and The Doc also had to get in on the action. I was only about to snap a pic of about 30, but don’t they look divine? Or as Big A says…scrumptious!

And by the time I was finished with the last batch and ready to have one for myself, this is what was left.