The carnival is heading towards its end. This Thursday is Fat Thursday in Poland. On this day calories don’t exist.

Karnawał się kończy. Jak dobrze wiemy, w Tłusty Czwartek kalorie nie istnieją.

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Fat Thursday is our version of Pancake Tuesday, just deep-fried and more varied.

“Angel wings” is a name I have never heard of in England until I looked it up on Wikipedia. These light and crunchy treats aren’t too sweet, but dangerously moreish. Easy to make and you can beat the dough with a hammer – get rid of any frustrations you may have.

Source of the recipe is Polish website Moje Wypieki.

Planning

You’ll need a meat hammer, and a good saucepan with thick bottom. I use a pizza knife to cut the dough.

I really recommend having a thermometer with a probe that can be put into the pan. I control the temperature to be at 175 C. This helps prevent burning or soaking the oil too much. Paper towel will also help with the fat.

Having some skewers to handle the wings when frying will be helpful.

Ingredients

Makes a nice stack of these.

• 450 g plain wheat flour

• 5 egg yolks

• pinch of salt

• 1 tablespoon pure spirit, or 2 tablespoons rum, or 1 tablespoon pain vinegar

• 200 ml thick sourcream

• frying oil (rapeseed, coconut)

• icing sugar for dusting

  Preparation of angel wings

Preparation

1. Mix sifted flour with other ingredients to form a ball of dough. Leave it for about 30 minutes in room temperature

2. Use a kitchen hammer to beat the dough, then fold it in two and repeat. You need to incorporate as much air in the dough as possible. If you use the spiky side, the bubbles will be tiny, if you use the flat one, they will be bigger. I usually do it for 10 minutes or so

3. Refrigerate the dough for half an hour

4. Start heating the oil. Use reasonably low heat, this way it’s easier to control the temperature. It should be 175 C hot

   I use a simple electronic thermometer with a probe

5. Roll the dough until about 2 mm thick, cut in stripes about 3 cm wide and then in rectangles about 10-15 cm long. Cut a hole about 5 cm long in the middle and put one end through it
   [youtube  https://youtu.be/p5n-dJG9a1c  ]

6. Put two or three pieces in the oil, fry until light brown on one side, then flip and do the same in the other side

   Put more in the oil if they fit

7. Take them out and put on a paper towel to remove excess fat

   Removing too much fat

8. Stack cool angel wings on a plate and dust each layer with icing sugar

These come out delicately crunchy, absolutely irresistible. Note that they have no sugar in the dough so they will be as sweet as you dust them.

Angel wings

You’ll be left with a lot of egg whites. You can use them to make an egg white cake, an omelette, scrambled eggs, meringue, macaroons… The list goes on, just made sure you don’t waste them.