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french crullers
French crullers are probably one of my favorite kinds of doughnuts. They aren’t too sweet, and have a texture and flavor all their own—eggy and light on the inside and sweet and crispy on the outside.
It had never occurred to me that I could make my own until last summer I came across an old Martha Stewart Living that gave instructions on how to make them. I don’t recall the recipe they used exactly, but I do remember they used a pâte à choux—that wonderful, easy to make, easy to use French pastry dough—and piped it onto little squares of parchment paper with a large star tip, then lowered it slowly into the hot oil.
For my own version, I basically did the same. They were exceptionally easy, and were a great variation of texture and flavor from the other doughnuts.
french crullers
8 cups vegetable oil for frying
2 cups (500mL) water
1 1/2 sticks (185g) unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups (300g) flour
1 1/2 cups eggs, about five large eggs and 4 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon zest
glaze (recipe follows)
1. In a large pot, bring oil up to 350 degrees (180 degrees celsius). In another pot set over high heat, combine water, butter, sugar, and salt and bring to a boil. Pull off heat and stir in flour and stir constantly until the mixture comes together into a ball. Reduce heat to low and stir the dough until the flour begins to cook. You can tell this is happening when a thin film of floury paste begins to coat the bottom of the pan. Once this happens, remove the dough from the heat and wait 4-5 minutes for it to cool.
2. Place dough in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low, add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition until fully incorporated before adding the next. When dough is fully incorporated, add in vanilla and lemon zest and transfer to a large pastry bag fitted with a large star tip (Wilson 1M).
3. Cut up parchment paper into 4 inch squares and pipe the dough onto the paper in the shape of a circle. Using tongs, grab the corner of the paper and carefully lower the dough into the oil, dough side down. Let the doughnut cook for about 30 seconds before using the tongs to peel off the parchment paper. Cook three at a time, about 1 minute on each side, or until both sides are golden brown.
4. As the doughnuts finish cooking, transfer them to a wire rack to cool, and while still warm, coat them in vanilla glaze.
for the glaze:
1 cup (130g) confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Mix together confectioner’s sugar, cream, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. Add more liquid as necessary to make a smooth, runny glaze.
11 Responses to “french crullers”
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Such a classic!
what a wonderful doughnuts!! perfect also your way to explain how to make them. Thanks for the idea and greetings from Italy!
How wonderful…so often I marvel at sites that tell the ordinary person how to produce such lovely things that they previously thought could only be had in the shops…eg marshmallows, nut brittle, caramels etc. Thank you.
These are beautiful Jaime!
I LOVE cruellers! they’re always the first doughnuts to go in the staffroom doughnut box and sometimes I miss out! I never thought to make my own. Yours look fantastic!
At what point does the 1 1/2 sticks of butter come in? I am going to make these luscious treats!
How many does this recipe make?
First of all I love cruellers the best donut in the world and I would love to make them but my problem is I dont have a paddle attachment for my machine , my question is can they be still made without the paddle and how.
Thank You
@luis If you don’t have a stand mixer or a paddle attachment, a hand mixer in a regular bowl will work fine, too.
[...] though, right? So I took a pop on over to Doughnut Week and what do I see but a recipe for French Crullers. My favorite. All of a sudden I missed home. Not my current home but one in [...]
These really do look great. And it’s good to know that the fluted ring typical of these crullers isn’t carved in stone. There are no “cruller police” who’ll arrest you for piping them freeform, like these are.
I’m here trying to find out how Dunkin Donuts got those sugar flakes on their crullers. So far, no luck.
But Luis asked if this dough can be made without a paddle attachment – I’ve made choux paste like this many times, for profiteroles and other delights.
You don’t need ANY machine at all! Just beat well by hand. I don’t think any machine is going to give you much time-saving here. Especially since you have to find, attach, use, remove and then wash the beaters. A good wooden spoon is much faster to use.
Nor would you HAVE to adhere to the classic shape, although it IS desirable, filling the bag and piping the dough out, to give it those little ridges that crisp up so well. You could just form them into sticks or balls.
One thing I would do with these, though, is that after the piping or forming is done, I’d let the dough dry out some before plunking it into the oil.
I might try to get those flakes by frying them only till they’re solid enough to remove from the oil. Then I’d coat them with a 1/2-1/2 mixture of butter and sugar, and bake them till done. Don’t know if it’ll work, though. Maybe all that needs doing is to take the cooked crullers, coat them with sugar, and briefly redunk them in the hot oil, after making it VERY hot. You’d have to do this only AFTER all the crullers are fried, because your oil would get a lot of sugar in it. It could not be reused for anything. If you used a lot of oil and don’t want it all to go to waste, you could pour off just enough to immerse the crullers about halfway, save the rest of the oil for some other sweet you’ll fry, and just use that smaller amount of oil to put the flakes on the crullers.
None of this have I tried – it’s all speculation. But Luis – just use a wooden spoon; it works as well as a machine for choux paste.