Recipe #63 - Sopapillas

The first time that I remember trying sopapillas was as a kid at a Mexican restaurant in Denver.  The three things I remember about this place were the sopapillas, cliff divers and a man walking around in a gorilla outfit.  I thought it was a the coolest restaurant ever.  As an adult, we traveled to Denver and I really wanted to take my son (who was 2 or 3 years old) to that same restaurant.  Thanks to Google, we found the restaurant known for cliff diving and a gorilla.  Well...at least the sopapillas were as good I remembered them.  The rest was pretty lame from an adult point of view.  I guess some memories are just better left as is.

Now you get to make memories of your own.  Try this sopapilla recipe on page 68, and its not online.  (Seriously, go buy this cookbook if you don't have it.)

In a large bowl, you mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and shortening.  (In hindsight, I would probably do this with a pastry mixer/chopper thingie.  Yes, that's the technical term for it.)

 Then mix in the warm water until smooth.

I had to sort of knead mine to get it to smooth out,  Even then it wasn't super smooth.  I was a little nervous about it and tripled checked that I had read the instructions correctly.  Appeared to be okay so I pressed on.

Then you cover the dough with a towel and let it sit for 30-40 minutes.  Next roll out the dough until its about 1/4 inch thick.

Cut it into 3-inch squares.  Yeah, mind aren't perfect.  Oh well!

Next heat your oil to 375 degrees.

You fry each square until golden brown.  Keep on eye on these babies because it happens fast.  I flipped them halfway through using a slotted spoon.

Let them drain for a minute on paper towels. 

Serve with the toppings of your choice.  We used honey butter, regular honey, powdered sugar, and cinnamon sugar.  We just let the kids pick what they wanted on them.  My favorite was spreading honey butter all over the outside and then sprinkling it with cinnamon sugar.  Dangerous!

The kids made a mess but gobbled them up.  Check out the powdered sugar poofing through the air when she would breathe on her sopapilla.  Love it!

 The older girls all ended up with total powdered sugar faces.

 
Two thumbs up from the "lateover" crew.  (We don't do sleepovers at our house.  We do lateovers instead.)  Molly even gave it a bonus "foot up" as well, she said.