Papanasi recipe

This recipe is a typical desert from Romania and I really liked the taste of it. It's like a kind of ball which tastes like fartura (Portuguese style donuts), without sugar all over it, and instead, it is accompanied with a raspberry sauce, which can be a different flavour, depending on what the chef prefers.

The recipe makes 8 portions and takes 20 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 500g cow cheese (full fat)
• 2 eggs
• 100g sugar
• 5ml vanilla essence (1 teaspoon)
• 200g wheat flour
• 2g baking soda (1 teaspoon)
• 500ml sunflower oil (for frying)
• 400g sour cream
• 400g sweet fruit or anything else sweet

Preparation method:

1. Mix the cow cheese with the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract.
2. Separately, mix the flour with the baking soda.
3. Mix the flour in with the cheese mixture and mix everything well. This will result in a sticky, soft dough. You can add a tablespoon of flour if it's too sticky.
4. Sprinkle flour onto the dough. Don't kneed too much, otherwise the dough will be too hard.
5. Divide the dough into 8 larger balls (papanasi) and another 8 smaller balls. The small balls will become the ball at the top of the papanasi.
6. Make a larger hole in the middle of the papanasi.
7. Put the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. When it has heated up, put two or three pieces of papanasi into the pan. The papanasi will swell in the pan, so don't put too many in or there will be no room.
8. Put the smaller balls with the other balls until they brown.
9. Remove the fried balls with an absorbent paper towel to remove excess oil.
10. Serve the hot papanasis with cream and sweet jam.

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