Puff Puff

Ingredients

• 500g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 tsp fast-action dried yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 400ml warm water
• 1 litre sunflower or groundnut oil, for deep frying
• 2 tbsp caster sugar, for dusting (optional)

Before you cook

• Mix the flour, sugar, yeast, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl.
• Warm the water to blood temperature, no hotter, so it does not kill the yeast.
• Clear space for a deep heavy pot and line a tray with kitchen paper.

Steps

1. Pour the warm water into the dry ingredients and beat hard with a wooden spoon or your hand for 3 minutes.
2. Keep beating until the batter is smooth, thick and stretchy, somewhere between a cake batter and a very wet dough. It should fall from the spoon in a slow ribbon.
3. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it in a warm place for 1 hour to 90 minutes, until the batter has doubled and the surface is covered in bubbles.
4. Pour the oil into a deep heavy pot to a depth of at least 8cm and heat it to 170C. The balls need room to bob and turn.
5. Wet one hand with water, scoop up a handful of batter and squeeze a portion the size of a golf ball out between your thumb and forefinger.
6. Scrape the ball off with a wet spoon and drop it gently into the oil.
7. Repeat until you have 6 or 7 balls in the pot, keeping them well spaced so the oil stays hot.
8. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, turning them with a slotted spoon as they colour, until they are deep golden brown all the way round.
9. Break one open to check the centre is cooked through and airy rather than doughy, and adjust the oil temperature if the outside browned before the middle set.
10. Lift the puff puff onto the paper-lined tray to drain, and fry the rest in batches.
11. Dust with caster sugar if you like and eat them warm.