What The ...Fridays

I don't know when I first heard of Funnel Cakes, maybe Regis and Kathie Lee, I haven't watched in many, many years, sorry Reg... you need to retire and Kelly...Not! Anywho, what's not delish' about deep fried dough (Wikipedia informs me it's batter, not dough) so, deep fried batter, cooked by a carnival worker(another little Wikipedia revelation) covered in powdered sugar? Just doesn't get any better.

A few weeks ago one of my neighbors came by with her little 4H girls (4H is like Girl Scouts) they were selling cookie dough. Now I need to spend 17 dollars on a tub of cookie dough, which won't even come close to how many cookies I need to make at a time, like I need to give birth to Octuplets. But, I confess, I'm a sucker for door to door salespeople, by the time their solicitous souls have left my doorstep I will know where they grew up and with how many siblings, what their hopes dreams and aspirations are and will most likely have fed them a hearty meal and lined them up with an eligible member of the opposite sex. I wish this was an exaggeration!

So I obligingly perused the cookie dough brochure, commenting on how fun 4H was when I was a girl, and what were their projects for the county fair? Ah ha! Funnel cake mix. I've heard of funnel cakes but never eaten them I'll by a $17 tub of funnel cake mix; we'll pay for the Octuplets out of the next check.

Fast forward to last night at 9:00 PM several of my children were foraging through the kitchen looking for a sweet treat. I suddenly remembered the Funnel Cake Mix. Note-to-self: You have a no food after 9:00PM rule for a reason.

I read the instructions, 2 cups mix, 1 and 1/4 cups water, mix well, pour into hot oil beginning at the middle in slightly overlapping concentric circles, huh... well, if a carnival worker can do it...

The mix claimed to make 30 four inch cakes. I did some rapid math, 10 people x teenage boy appetites = I know, I'll double the batch wouldn't want to run out of fried dough batter, sprinkled with powdered sugar at 10:00 PM.

I peeled the vacuum packing plastic off the top of the tub, powdered flour flew everywhere. I fished out a packet of powdered sugar, more powdered flour rose in a cloud around me. I dumped powder into a four cup measuring pitcher, my clean kitchen and I were now covered with a layer of powdered flour. I added the water, Uhh...didn't the instructions say pour? I added more water, then more, no room left in the pitcher that will have to do. Hot oil is already filling the house with that hot oil smoke, lovely, tilt pitcher starting in the middle of the pan, pour forming concentric slightly overlapping circles.

What the...

This is what a Funnel Cake should look like.



This is how my, What The... Funnel Cakes look.

Turns out, the word Funnel is a clue, you're supposed to actually use a funnel to pour, not a pitcher filled with rapidly expanding, thick batter. It's a little late in coming but the realization that I'll never be a carnival pastry chef has finally dawned on my doughy battered brain.