Gluten Free Crullers
Light and airy fried crullers are made with the simple pastry dough with the fancy-sounding French name: pâte à choux. Pipe the simple dough onto parchment, slide it into the oil, and they're ready almost instantly!
Yield: 12 crullers
Ingredients
- 1 recipe gluten free choux pastry
- 1 cup (115 g) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk (any kind) plus more by the 1/4 teaspoonful if necessary
- Oil for frying (I used a combination of equal parts canola oil and Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening)
Instructions
Prepare the raw crullers.
- Prepare the choux pastry dough according to the recipe instructions.
- Place the choux pastry in a large pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch (13 mm) open star tip (the Ateco #826 tip is a good example).
- Cut 12 squares of unbleached parchment paper, each 4-inches square, and grease the squares lightly with cooking oil.
- Pipe the choux pastry in rings, one on each greased parchment square, closing the ring by overlapping the pastry slightly, and twisting up on the piping bag at the end.
- Alternatively, grease a large piece of unbleached parchment paper, pipe the rings, spaced 2 inches apart, on the paper, and then cut the parchment paper into squares, one pastry ring per square (I actually like this alternate method a bit better).
Make the glaze.
- In a small bowl, place the confectioners’ sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk. Mix well, until a thick paste forms.
- Add more milk by the 1/4-teaspoon, mixing to combine well, until the glaze falls off the spoon slowly, in a thick but pourable glaze. A
- dd milk very slowly, as it is much easier to thin, than to thicken, the glaze. If you do thin the glaze too much, add more confectioners’ sugar a teaspoon at a time to thicken it.
Fry and glaze the crullers.
- In a medium-size, heavy-bottom pot or fryer, place about 3-inches of frying oil.
- Clip a deep-fry/candy thermometer to the side of the pot or fryer, and place the oil over medium-high heat. Bring the oil temperature to 340°F.
- Place the crullers one at a time in the hot oil by placing each cruller face down, still on its own piece of oiled parchment paper, in the oil.
- Allow to fry for a moment before carefully pulling the parchment paper off the cruller with tongs.
- Fry in small batches until well-puffed and lightly golden brown all over (2 to 3 minutes per side). Do not crowd the oil at all.
- As soon as each batch is removed from the fryer, place on paper towels to drain for only about 1 minute before dipping the top of each cruller in the glaze.
- Place right-side up on a wire rack to allow any excess glaze to drip off the cruller.
- Serve immediately.