Crullers (Klenater)

Crullers (Klenater)

printable version

I love the historical feel of this recipe - but I did not love the recipe.  

My parents always had these writing tablets around the house - the sheets are about 8" from top to bottom and 5" wide.  They were about 1" thick.  I still see them in the office section of most stores.  Personally, I never buy paper to write on at home.  I write on the back of all the school / church papers that come home.  If it's a formal note I'll get a sheet of notebook paper which I've picked up over the years on back-to-school sales for about 10 or 25 cents per pack.  But my mom would always buy these pricey tablets and that's what this recipe is written on.  The edges are curled and split and a bit yellowed.  There's a grease stain on it and it is all in her handwriting - including the umlaut (2 dots) over the "a" in "Klenater".  

She attributes it in the top corner to "Dad Johnson" - my father's father, I assume.  He was Swedish and immigrated to the U.S. when he was young.  I always loved the story that his last name was actually Yohansen (spelling?) but when he came through Ellis island they made him change it to something the clerk could spell.  By the time I knew my grandfather you would've never known he was Swedish.  He never spoke with an accent, never spoke a word of Swedish, I don't even remember any nostalgia in his home.  He looked and behaved very American.  I'm proud of both him and my Greek grandmother who both learned the language and the culture of their new home.  Because of them I feel justified in my frustration at the new breed of immigrants who come here and don't even try to assimilate.  Furthermore they expect everything to be changed to meet their needs.  Granted, I have profited from this when I worked as an English as a Second Language (ESL) aide - but my grandmother didn't have anybody following around her school in Chicago translating things into Greek for her!  And when I have lived abroad I worked hard to learn the language and fit in to the point that new people I met didn't believe I was American.

SO - anyway...This recipe is nothing like the crullers you get at a donut shop that are light and airy!

I found the dough incredibly difficult to work with.  I knew from the beginning I did not want 6-7 dozen as there would only be the three of us for Sunday brunch so I divided the recipe ingredients by 3 and just made 1/3 of the recipe to get 2+ dozen.  As I was battling with it I kept wondering if I'd made a mistake in my conversion but I really don't think I did.

I gathered up all the ingredients first.  Happily, I had 2 egg yolks left over from something I made last week that needed 2 egg whites!  I used dried lemon peel from the spice section instead of grating it fresh.  According to the Google, 1 medium lemon would produce 1 TBSP of rind so knowing that 1 TBSP = 3 tsp. I just used 1 tsp. since I was making 1/3 recipe.  Light cream is such a rare find these days so I used heavy cream.

The recipe said 3 (1) cups sifted all-purpose flour.  That, to me, is different than "x" cups flour, sifted.

The way the recipe is written it implies that the flour should be measured after sifting as compared to measuring first, then sifting.  In theory, sifting before measuring will get more flour into the recipe.  Now that I think about it...maybe that was the problem!

I knew I'd be spreading flour on the counter anyway so I didn't care if the sifting process got some flour on the counter.

In fact, when I leveled off the cup I just drug it right off the edge and onto the counter.  Notice the ridges on the flour.  You should always knock the knife in a chopping manner all over the top to help spread out into all the cracks and dips.  Then once you chop all the way across you go back and scrape off the extra.

Instruction #1 is already a bit confusing - beat until light and thick.  In my opinion, egg yolks are already thick.  And with only egg yolks in the mix, I'm not sure what is supposed to make it lighter except maybe a slight bit of air.

As the yolks spread out in the bowl I made sure to get the beaters all the way to the edge and drag that part back into the middle.

It looks slightly lighter than when I began...

It seemed a little funny to "gradually" add the sugar since I was only working with 1 TBSP + 1 tsp but I guess everything is proportional...so I added in two parts.

2 TBSP of cream became 2 tsp. of cream since 1 TBSP = 3 tsp and 1/3 of 3 is 1 tsp x 2 for each of the 2 TBSP.

After adding the cream and lemon peel I mixed it well before adding the flour.

The dough was VERY crumbly and I hadn't even added all the flour yet.

After I added all the flour it was so dry that the flour was not incorporating.

I got a spatula and tried dragging it over the dough while applying pressure hoping that would incorporate the flour.

The spatula helped a little but not enough.  I got one more egg yolk and beat it up and added it to the dough.  That helped significantly but still didn't solve the entire problem.

I abandoned the beaters and spatula and went at it the old fashioned way, with my hands.  I grabbed up some dough and squeezed it into a ball then add a little more and a little more.

The outside of the dough ball was dry but the inside had some moisture to it so I broke it in half and turned it inside out.

I put my pan of Canola oil over high heat and planned to use my thermometer to check that it was 370 degrees.  Once I tried to measure it I realized the meat thermometer only goes up to 220.  Well, the oil was popping so I figured it was hot.  I actually wound up turning it down from 8  to 6 then 5 once I started frying the dough.

The dough was still rather dry so I drizzled a little more cream onto it in three different places...

I let it run down into the cracks and kneaded after each of the three drizzles.

 Not sure if this dough is going to hold together but decided to give it a go with the rolling pin.

The dough was very hard to roll out.  I got more results by doing short choppy rolls instead of trying to push all the way across.  I thought about melting some butter and brushing it on the dough when it was rolled out to give it a bit more moisture but I wanted to stay true to the recipe.

I got the dough as thin as I could but had a hard time getting the cookie cutter through it.  I pressed down and then had to go over it with a knife.  I tried putting the cutter on top and just tracing around with a knife.  In the end I wound up abandoning the cutter and just using the knife free-hand.

After I got the diamond cut I rolled it again and was able to thin it out some more.

You can see how much bigger I was able to make it.

I cut the slit and tucked it through.  I really thought the dough would break but it did not.  These looked like some sort of tortilla chip - especially because the non-fresh lemon peel has a bit of dark color to it.

I dropped it into the oil and left it for less than 1 minute.

I flipped it once and let it cook a few more seconds.

I thought about just balling up the dough and frying it that way.  The first ball held together okay.

In the end I just fried the last two pieces without the pass-through slot and then all the scraps as another ball.  This ball did not hold together well.

Not what comes to mind when I hear "cruller".

Whenever I sprinkle powdered sugar on something I use a small strainer to make a more even dusting.

I dusted on one side and then flipped and dusted again.

The family didn't hate them but they definitely were not wowed.  I set out a few additional toppings: condensed milk, chocolate and white icing.  Surprisingly they used none of them.  I tried the condensed milk and liked it a little better than not having it on.  Overall they were extremely dry and not very tasty.  Just like fried dough.

I was surprised that the recipe had no salt, butter or leavening agent.  Likewise it didn't have to rise.  I wonder if there is a history to this recipe about being popular during a war when ingredients were scarce.