Crispy fried sweets for Mardi Gras

Merveilles — "miracles" in French — are puffy, crunchy, sugar-dusted and my favorite for the holiday

Bonjour! Bonjour!

With apologies to my friends in NOLA, I didn’t realize that Mardi Gras was almost here. While it’s not a holiday I celebrate, it’s one that holds a special place in my heart because the first flight I ever took was to visit my aunt in New Orleans and to go to the Mardi Gras parades. My mother said she was picking sequins and confetti out of my clothes for days after I got back to Brooklyn. Since I wasn’t in charge of laundry, I love the thought that my wonderful time at the parades sparkled on.

The realization that Mardi Gras was just days away came to me, as so many things do when I’m in Paris, at a patisserie. I went out for croissants and came home with beignets — not at all the same things. Not even close. But there they were, set out in anticipation of Carnaval. The next thing I knew, I was dunking them into my cappuccino. A nice way to get into the holiday spirit.

Carnaval in France is Mardi Gras in America and indulgent everywhere. In New Orleans (I think of that town as Mardi Gras’ epicenter), there’s King Cake, a filled, twisted, frosted sweet roll decorated in gold (for power), green (for faith) and purple (for justice) and hiding a trinket, often a little baby. The first King Cakes roll out for Epiphany (just like galette des rois in France — see below), when they celebrate the Three Kings visiting Jesus, and finish their colorful run on Mardi Gras.

Epiphany: Playing hide-and-seek with your pastry

In France, the galette des rois (rois means king) is usually in pastry shops for all of January and then, when Carnaval’s on the horizon, in comes the beignet band.  

A Time to Fry

Depending on where you come from in France, you might make beignets, bugnes, oreillettes or merveilles for the holiday, and you might make the same thing as your neighbor and call it by a different name. No matter what you call the sweets, you’ll be frying dough. Lots of beignets are like doughnuts, but my favorites for the holiday are made by dropping scoops of cream puff dough/pâte à choux into oil. They’re called pets de nonne, nun’s beignets, and they’re crisp on the outside, soft and eggy on the inside, wonderful rolled around in sugar and best eaten when they’re just out of the pot. (I’ve got a recipe for these — and the real translation of the name — in Baking Chez Moi.)

Pets de nonne photographed by Alan Richardson for Baking Chez Moi

Bugnes are known by their shape — a kind of knot — and can either be bready, like the ones I recently had, or crisp and crunchy. Although, I just bought a puffy, bready bugne that was shaped like an oreillette — insert confused emoji. Oreillettes are often crispy, so are merveilles, but they’re all kissing cousins from the same family. They’re all made of sweet dough and they’re all fried. They’re all dusted with sugar, too. And they’re all very delicious, even if they all have their own look: Bugnes are usually knotted; oreillettes are usually cut into their namesake pillow shape; and merveilles, well, they’re the outliers, they can be just about any shape.

Merveilles, cut with a rick-rack ravioli cutter and left long and thin so that they can ripple in the oil, are my favorites of the crispy cousins, and so that’s the recipe I’ve got for you today. Also, who doesn’t like something with a name that declares that it’s a miracle!

Roll up your sleeves, roll out some dough and fry up a treat. And keep in touch.

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MERVEILLES

• Adapted from Baking Chez Moi (one of my favorite books)

• Click here for printable recipe

Alan Richardson for Baking Chez Moi

GOOD TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START

The booze: I add either brandy or dark rum to the dough. In France, bakers would use whatever alcohol was local to them. If you want to omit the alcohol, you can swap it for 2 tablespoons orange juice or water.

The shape: Up for grabs. The dough is fun to work with, so cut it into whatever shape seems like it’ll be loved chez you.

The oil: I fry these in grape seed or canola oil, but as with the alcohol, the oil of choice in France would be the one most common to the region. You might find these cooked in olive oil in Provence, goose or duck fat in the Southwest or in shortening here or there. Use the oil that you’d normally use for deep-fat frying.

Makes about 40 pastries

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup (136 grams) all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• Grated zest of 1 orange

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten, at room temperature

• 2 tablespoons brandy or dark rum (see above)

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Flavorless oil, such as grape seed or canola, for deep frying (see above)

Cinnamon sugar and/or confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

DIRECTIONS

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.

Put the sugar in a medium bowl and sprinkle the orange zest over it. Using your fingertips, rub the sugar and zest together until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Toss the butter into the bowl and work it into the sugar with a sturdy flexible spatula. Pour in the egg, brandy and vanilla and stir to blend as best as you can. At this point, the mixture will look like egg drop soup — don’t be discouraged. Add the dry ingredients and stir until the dough, which will be soft and moist and very much like a sticky muffin dough, comes together.

Turn out the dough, wrap in plastic film and chill it for at least 2 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for as long as overnight.)

When you’re ready to roll and cut the dough, line a baking sheet with plastic film.

Cut the dough in half and return one half to the refrigerator. Flour your work surface well — this is a sticky dough and will need more flour than you might usually use—put the piece of dough on it and flour the top of the dough. Roll it out, turning it over to make sure it’s not sticking, rolling on both sides and adding more flour if necessary. Once the surface is properly floured and you’ve got the dough going, it’s very easy to roll, and you’ll be able to roll it until it’s paper-thin, which is what you want. If you can roll it into a large rectangle, great; if it’s more free-form, that’s fine too.

Working with a fluted pastry or ravioli cutter, a plain pizza wheel or a knife, cut the dough into long strips, squares, diamonds or any other shape that appeals to you. (I go for strips that are about 1 inch wide and 3 inches long; for more drama, you can go longer.) Place the strips on the lined baking sheet and cover with another piece of plastic film. Repeat with the remaining dough, cover with the plastic and chill for at least 1 hour.

When you’re ready to fry: Have a baking sheet lined with a triple thickness of paper towels near the cooktop. Have a skimmer, tongs or chopsticks (my favorite here), at hand as well. Fill a sugar duster or strainer with either cinnamon sugar or confectioners’ sugar, or fill two dusters so you can use both sugars. Pour 4 inches of oil into a large deep saucepan (or use an electric deep fryer) and heat it to 350 degrees F, as measured on a deep-fat thermometer.

Drop 4 to 6 merveilles into the pan — don’t crowd them — and fry until they’re golden on both sides, 2 to 3 minutes. Lift them out of the oil with the skimmer, allowing the excess oil to drip back into the pan, then turn out onto the paper-towel-lined pan to drain. Pat the tops with more paper towels to remove surface oil, then dust both sides with sugar while the cookies are still hot and slightly moist from the oil. Continue frying — making sure to keep the oil at 350 degrees F — draining, patting and dusting until all the dough is fried.

STORING: These are really best minutes after they’re made and certainly the same day that you fry them. If the sugar has melted into the cookies, give them another dusting before serving.

📚 You can find more recipes in my latest book BAKING WITH DORIE.

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