Fritters are a very typical dessert in Spanish cuisine. Here's an easy recipe to make classic buñuelos de viento and I explain how to prepare vanilla pastry cream and chantilly or whipped cream filling.
Plus, I'll tell you how to make them puff up a lot and end up very hollow. I encourage you to make them because they're a real treat. You'll see your family appreciates that little time in the kitchen. A luxury dessert for very little money.
What are buñuelos de viento?
Essentially, buñuelos de viento are a dough made with flour, lard (or butter), and eggs, shaped into balls and fried. When fried, they puff up, taking in a lot of air (hence the name, air fritters, wind fritters). They are small balls, about 3 cm in diameter when done.
You can enjoy them simply fried, as-is, or filled. Some of the most classic fillings are whipped cream, pastry cream, chantilly, or chocolate.
Given their basic ingredients, they’re an inexpensive dessert that became very popular. You’ll also see them made with corn flour or with anise flavors. There are many variations depending on where you have them, but here we leave you the traditional recipe, which we hope you enjoy a lot.
Buñuelos de viento are a typical dessert in November (a classic for All Saints' Day), also a classic on Christmas tables or around Easter, but you can certainly enjoy them all year round.
Things to keep in mind
If there’s something interesting about buñuelos de viento, it’s:
- That they rise during frying (in the recipe we tell you how), taking in a lot of air and becoming hollow inside (whether to show off good traditional technique or to be able to fill them to your liking).
- A good fry: as any good fry requires, the dough should be fried when the oil is hot and at a steady temperature. To that end, it’s helpful to use a cast iron pan: iron pans reach higher temperatures than any other material, and they’ll help you both get the oil very hot and ready to fry quickly and keep that temperature even as you add the dough (that’s why cast iron pans are so ideal for frying).
- Fry the dough at room temperature: If for some reason you made the dough ahead of time and had it in the fridge, before shaping the balls and frying it’s important that the dough has come to room temperature (take it out of the fridge half an hour before frying). That way, with the dough at room temperature, you won’t drop the oil temperature as much when adding the balls to the fryer, and you’ll also get them to rise more, making fantastic buñuelos de viento.
- Don’t add too many fritters at once: so they have space between them to rise, and so you don’t change the oil temperature and can get a good fry.
NO.W round plate by Revol, Revol porcelain round plates and Luigi Bormioli airtight jars and bottles.
Foolproof buñuelos de viento recipe
Ingredients for about 27–30 fritters
- 170 g of flour
- 7 g baking powder
- 250 g water
- 50 g butter
- A pinch of salt
- 5 g sugar and a little more for coating
- 4 eggs
- For frying: olive or sunflower oil
- Whipped cream for filling
Preparation
- In a bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside.
- In a saucepan over the heat, add the water, butter, salt, and sugar. Once the butter has melted and it starts to boil, add the bowl of flour all at once and stir quickly without removing from the heat, until you get a compact mixture. Remove from the heat and keep mixing. Now let it rest for about 5 minutes.
- Next, add the eggs one by one, mixing well after each until fully incorporated. The dough should be creamy but quite thick. Let the dough rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
- After that time, heat plenty of oil in a Mineral B iron frying pan by De Buyer at a temperature of about 170ºC.
- With two small spoons greased with oil, form little balls and drop them into the oil. With plenty of oil, the balls should float in it and, as they cook on one side, they flip themselves over to fry on the other. If needed, help them turn with a wooden spoon so they’re golden all over. Don’t fry too many at a time because they puff up a lot and shouldn’t bump into each other. And yes, let them rise so they’re nice and hollow inside!
- Lift them out with a slotted spoon and place them on paper towels. While they’re still warm, this is the time to coat them in sugar as I did, and then all that’s left is to fill them with whipped cream using a piping bag, a small spoon, or the foolproof filling syringe.
Mineral B iron frying pan by de Buyer, Luigi Bormioli airtight jars and bottles and Revol porcelain round plates.
Tips & Tricks
- Pour in the sifted flour and baking powder all at once and stir vigorously.
- Watch the temperature of the oil you’ll fry them in; don’t let it go over 165ºC–170ºC.
- When frying, let them rise and don’t worry if they split open—that’s normal; this way they’ll be hollower inside.
- You can replace the water in the fritters with milk if you prefer; that also works.
- Some people like them with anise or vanilla flavor—in that case, add a teaspoon of extract to the dough during preparation.
- You can serve the fritters unfilled: simply, after removing them from the pan, sprinkle lots of sugar on top and serve as-is.
- We filled them with whipped cream, but you can also fill them with pastry cream (in this post, you’ll see how to make pastry cream the easiest way), chocolate, or chantilly, or make a few of each.
NO.W round plate by Revol, Revol porcelain round plates and Luigi Bormioli airtight jars and bottles.
