Happy New Year 2013.
Fritters, aka Mushabbak or Zlabiah
INGREDIENTS: 8 servings
- 1 cup of flour
- 1 cup of cornflour
- 1 Tbsp. of dry instant yeast
- 1 Tbsp. of sugar
- 1/2 tsp. of cardamom (or mahlab)
- 1 liter (4 cups) of oil
- Sugar syrup:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp. rose water or a sprig of geranium leaf dipped in the syrup or a flavoring of your choice
- Food coloring (optional)
METHOD:
1•Place the flour, cornflour, cardamom, instant yeast, sugar in a large mixer bowl; mix until the dry ingredients are well combined. Pour 1 cup of warm water and mix for a few minutes until the mixture is smooth. Place the bowl in a closed cupboard and wait for a few hours for the mixture to swell and bubble up. In the meantime, prepare the syrup.
2.Place the sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat; add the lemon juice and bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the rose water. Let the syrup cool completely.
3.Heat the oil to 375F; stir the batter to deflate the bubbles and pour into a plastic bottle with a spout or a decorating bag with a tube with a small opening. Squirt the batter into the hot oil in a circular motion. Wait two minutes for the fritter to puff up and get stiff and golden and lift up and drain of all the oil; immediately dip into the syrup for 30 seconds, then lift and place in a serving platter. Serve.
Note: These fritters taste best when fresh. They can be garnished with gold leaf.
24 Comments
They look beautiful. Delicious and also…
Joumana, happy new year to you and your relatives.
Those look amazing!
Best wishes for the New Year.
Cheers,
Rosa
de véritables joyaux!! j’adore ces couleurs!
Mes meilleurs voeux pour la nouvelle année Joumana,! grosses bises!
Omg, those fritters are definitely very attractive and very irresistible. Happy new year wishes.These mushabbak sounds exactly like Indian Jalebis.
We call these Zoolbia and I loooove them. I used to eat them until I had sugar coma when I was a kid! Love your use of the food coloring, very beautiful. Happy new year!
Nice! Love the colors! Wishing you a very Happy New Year!
Melt in your mouth awesomeness. Happy new year!
MashAllah these look amazing I ldo love them.
How pretty they are! I can imagine how fun it must be piping those squiggles into the hot oil and seeing what shapes appear.
These fritters look so beautiful, they almost seem unreal. Happy New Year and thank you for visiting my blog!
What is cornflour? Is that cornmeal? What type of grade of cornmeal, if so? Just regular coarse cornmeal in the US?
@Georges: the cornflour used here in Lebanon is a flour milled from corn and it is yellowish. I assume the equivalent in the US is masa harina, the cornflour sold in Latino supermarkets or in mainstream large supermarkets used to make tortillas. It is not cornmeal. Suggested substitutes could be cornstarch (Maizena) or cake flour which is very soft flour.
WOW…these look so COOL! Happy New Year, Joumana!
I have absolutely never seen a dessert like this before. Bookmarking to try.. Wishing you all the best for the new year!
I’m so glad you made this dessert, I don’t have a good recipe for it and the store bought can’t taste as good as homemade. I’ll be trying them soon, thanks
Tout simplement magnifique !!! Mais au vu de mon peu d’expérience je ne m’y lancerai pas. Les couleurs en transparence sont magnifiques, bisous et douce soirée
Wow, that is quite an incredible looking treat! Happy New Year!
Thank you for this recipe. I tried it. It was a huge success. Just like the mushaback we use to have in Lebanon. Now I’m going to search for more recipes. hope to find oweymet.
Hi Joumana,
Thank you for this lovely receipe. I have been looking for months for a receipe for awamat for the festive season and I have tried a couple. Now yours funny enough didn’t work out as a swirl so I did them in a shape like awamat. I think I may have stuffed up on the water quantity. In the mixture itself i placed the corn flour, flour, mahleb ,yeast and sugar. Only one cup of water for the above and mixed it with an electric beater. Left it for a couple of hours till it doubled in size. The mixture was very sticky not sure where I went wrong. I would to do this again to get it perfect.
Love your blog.
Regards from Australia
Oh I used cornflour thickener not corn flour as in corn.
@hazzi: Did you use a pastry bag to squeeze the dough out of? In any case, this is a difficult pastry and i personally tried it a few times before i got the hang of it. I also posted a recipe for ouwaymate if you want to try that one.
http://www.tasteofbeirut.com/2010/01/fritters-ouwaymate/
Thanks heaps Joumana.
So the dough is supposed to be sticky as such or do you think I may need to add more water. I appreciate your help.
@Hazzi: I would leave it sticky, since it is not meant to be made into a bread. I also would start out with a small quantity, 3 at a time and see how they taste. You can always add more water later. Good luck.
Thanks Joumana. Your a star!