Sopaipillas Pasadas

Ingredients

• 400 g plain flour
• 300 g cooked pumpkin, mashed and still warm
• 60 g lard or butter, melted
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 60 ml warm milk
• 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying
• 250 g chancaca, panela or dark muscovado sugar
• 600 ml water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Peel of 1 orange, in wide strips
• 3 cloves
• 1 tbsp cornflour

Before you cook

• Steam or boil 400 g of peeled pumpkin until soft, then mash it and let it cool to warm
• Melt the lard and let it cool slightly
• Peel the orange in wide strips, taking as little white pith as possible
• Mix the cornflour with 3 tablespoons of cold water to make a smooth slurry

Steps

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.
2. Make a well and add the warm pumpkin mash and the melted lard.
3. Bring the dough together with your hands, adding the warm milk a splash at a time until it is soft but not sticky.
4. Knead for 5 minutes until smooth, then cover the dough and rest it for 20 minutes.
5. Put the chancaca, water, cinnamon stick, orange peel and cloves in a saucepan.
6. Simmer the syrup for 20 minutes, until it has reduced by about a third and tastes strongly of orange and spice.
7. Stir in the cornflour slurry and simmer for 2 minutes more, until the syrup coats a spoon.
8. Take the syrup off the heat and leave the aromatics in it to keep infusing.
9. Roll the dough out to 5 mm thick and cut 18 discs of about 8 cm.
10. Prick each disc twice with a fork so it fries flat instead of ballooning.
11. Heat the oil to 180°C in a deep pan.
12. Fry three or four sopaipillas at a time for 90 seconds a side, until golden and puffed at the rim.
13. Drain them on kitchen paper and fry the rest the same way.
14. Fish the cinnamon, cloves and orange peel out of the syrup and bring it back to a gentle simmer.
15. Slide the sopaipillas into the syrup in batches and simmer them for 3 minutes, turning once.
16. Serve them hot in bowls with several spoonfuls of the syrup poured over.