Malassadas dos Açores

Ingredients

• 500 g plain flour
• 11 g instant dried yeast
• 30 g caster sugar, for the dough
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 3 eggs
• 60 g butter, softened
• 250 ml warm water
• 250 ml fresh orange juice (about 3 oranges)
• 2 tbsp aguardente or brandy
• 100 g caster sugar, for coating
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying

Before you cook

• Sift the flour into a very large bowl with the yeast, the 30 g of sugar and the salt.
• Squeeze the oranges and strain the juice to remove the pulp.
• Beat the eggs lightly in a small bowl.
• Mix the 100 g of coating sugar with the ground cinnamon on a wide plate.

Steps

1. Pour the warm water into the flour and stir it in with a wooden spoon.
2. Add the orange juice and the aguardente, and beat the mixture until it is smooth.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, working the batter hard between each addition.
4. Work the softened butter into the dough with your hands until no streaks of it remain.
5. Keep beating and slapping the dough against the side of the bowl for five minutes; it should stay very soft, sticky and stretchy, closer to a thick batter than a bread dough.
6. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave it somewhere warm for two to three hours, until it is puffed and full of bubbles.
7. Pour the oil into a deep heavy pan to a depth of 5 cm and heat it to 175C.
8. Drop in a scrap of dough to test the heat; it should rise and sizzle within three seconds.
9. Wet your hands with water, pinch off a piece of dough the size of a plum, and stretch it into a rough thin disc.
10. Slide the disc gently into the hot oil, away from you.
11. Fry three or four malassadas at a time for about ninety seconds, until the underside is deep gold.
12. Turn each one over and fry the second side for another ninety seconds.
13. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and drain them briefly on kitchen paper.
14. Toss each malassada in the cinnamon sugar while it is still hot so the coating clings.
15. Let the oil climb back to 175C before you fry the next batch, or the dough will soak up fat.
16. Pile them on a plate and eat them within the hour, while the insides are still steamy.