The buñuelos de viento are a typical sweet of Holy Week and the Feast of All Saints. Discover how to make them at home with these 3 delicious recipes.
Buñuelos are traditional sweets on the dates of Holy Week. These sweets are made with a flour dough and are later fried, although there are also recipes to make them in the oven.
The buñuelos de viento are also known as buñuelos de Cuaresma, it is a typical sweet in many regions of Spain and although tradition places the buñuelos as a sweet for Easter, it is also prepared in November, specifically to celebrate the festivity of All Saints.
These little sweets are so delicious and so easy to prepare that we can taste them enjoying a snack, breakfast or dessert at any time of the year that we feel like it.
The fritters can be prepared in various ways without filling or with filling; also adding flavor to the dough with ingredients such as pumpkin, apple, for the fillings pastry cream, chocolate filling, coffee cream or cream is usually used.
In addition to the sweet version of the fritters, fritters are also made in savory recipes, stuffed with cod or any other fish. However, there is no doubt that the sweet version is the most popular and well-known.
Fritters of wind: traditional recipe
These buñuelos de viento do not have a filling, and are sprinkled with icing sugar.
Ingredients:
- 125 grams of plain wheat flour.
- 35 grams of unsalted butter.
- 4 eggs.
- 125ml whole or skimmed milk.
- 125ml. From mineral water.
- 50 grams of white sugar.
- The zest of the skin of a lemon or orange.
- A pinch of salt.
- Mild flavored sunflower or virgin olive oil for frying.
- Icing sugar to sprinkle and decorate the fritters.
Elaboration:
In a saucepan or heater, heat the water together with the milk, salt, sugar, butter and the grated lemon or orange peel.
Once it is hot, add the sifted flour and mix well so that the dough forms, stir until the dough loosens from the walls of the heater.
Remove from heat and let cool. When it is cold, add the beaten eggs to the dough, mixing well. Let the dough rest in the fridge for about 2 hours.
Remove the dough from the fridge and set aside to heat the oil. Put the oil in a frying pan over medium heat.
When the oil is very hot, with the help of two spoons, we take a pile of dough and shape the fritter into a ball and fry it.
We do the same until the dough is finished and fry all the fritters over moderate heat, browning on both sides. We cover a tray with a napkin or absorbent paper to put the fritters and drain the oil.
Let cool and when presenting them, sprinkle them with icing sugar.
Another traditional recipe for buñuelos de viento
This time we propose another variant to make wind fritters at home, based on another equally traditional recipe but different from the one indicated above. Do you dare to prepare them?
Ingredients:
- 180g of water
- 1 cup of flour
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 5 eggs
- Icing sugar
- Sunflower oil
Preparation of wind fritters:
Add half a cup of oil and water, and heat it. When it starts to boil, add the flour little by little, stirring continuously so that no lumps form.
Remove from the heat and add the eggs one by one, without beating. However, keep in mind that you should not add the second egg before the pasta has absorbed the first.
With the help of two spoons, form the fritters in the pan and fry them in very hot oil. Drain them on absorbent paper (to avoid increasing the number of calories in the recipe).
To finish, add a little icing sugar on top, an ingredient that differentiates them from other typical fritters of other festivities.
Pumpkin Fritters
Pumpkin fritters are very easy to prepare and they are very tasty. They are made by adding a little pumpkin to the flour, which will make the fritters have a much softer and more characteristic flavor.
Ingredients:
- 250 grams of plain wheat flour.
- 250 grams of pumpkin.
- 20 grams of baker’s yeast.
- 60 grams of white sugar.
- 2 eggs.
- 125ml from mineral water.
- The zest of an orange peel.
- A pinch of salt.
- Icing sugar for sprinkling or white sugar.
- Mild flavored sunflower or virgin olive oil to fry the fritters.
Elaboration:
Remove the skin from the pumpkin, wash it and cut it into two or three pieces. We put the pumpkin to cook in a cauldron with a little water that only covers it and a little salt. When it is tender, turn off the heat and drain the water. We crush the pumpkin with the blender.
Sift the flour, put it in a bowl. Add the well-beaten eggs, the sugar, the grated orange peel, the water to the flour and make the dough.
When the dough has the right consistency, add the crushed pumpkin, a pinch of salt, and knead everything together again, until the dough is not sticky.
Cover the dough with cling film and let it rest for half an hour. With the help of two dessert spoons we form the ball-shaped fritters.
In a frying pan, heat the oil over moderate heat. Once it is very hot, we fry the fritters, browning them on both sides.
Put absorbent paper or a napkin on a plate to put the fried fritters on it and drain off the excess oil.
Let the fritters cool and once cold we can present them sprinkled with icing sugar or sliced by impregnating them with white or granulated sugar.
Custard filled fritters
Custard – filled fritters are very easy to prepare and are very tasty. To fill them we can make homemade vanilla custard that we would leave quite thick or resort to already-made industrial custard. Whether we opt for custard or another, we must bear in mind that it must be thick.
Ingredients:
- 500 ml. whole or skimmed milk.
- ¼ kilo of plain wheat flour.
- 4 eggs.
- The skin of a lemon.
- Anise grains or matalahúva, a teaspoon.
- Mild sunflower or virgin olive oil to fry the fritters.
- icing sugar to sprinkle
- Vanilla custard to fill the fritters.
Elaboration:
- In a saucepan or heater, heat the milk with the anise grains and the lemon peel.
- Heat until the milk boils and once it starts to boil, turns off the heat.
- Transfer the milk to a bowl, and add the sifted flour.
- We make dough and add the well-beaten eggs.
- We continue kneading until the dough is not sticky.
- Put the oil in a frying pan and heat over medium heat.
- With the help of two dessert spoons we are forming the fritters in the form of balls.
- When the oil is hot, fry the fritters, browning them on both sides.
- We are depositing the fried fritters on a plate covered with absorbent paper to drain the oil.
- Let the fritters cool.
When the fritters are cold, we open them in the center to fill them with a little thick custard.
We help ourselves with a dessert spoon.
When serving them, present them sprinkled with icing sugar.