Make Traditional Mexican Buñuelos at Home

Hi Bold Bakers! In this week's episode, we are making traditional buñuelos from Mexico. It's such a tasty treat, fantastic around Christmas time, it's really popular. It's an easy dough to make at home. In this episode, I'm going to show you how to make them from scratch and I'm also going to give you my five top frying tips to safely fry at home. So let's get started. The first thing we're going to do is make an anise tea. So one of the traditional flavors is anise. Now, in different countries they do have buñuelos with orange and different spices. My recipe is with anise. So I'm going to add in some ground anise. You can also do seeds into some hot water that has just been boiled and we are going to make a tea. We are going to let that steep there for around 20 minutes or so until it cools down and infuses in that water. While our tea is steeping, let's make our dough. Now this is a really easy dough we made by hand. It is not yeasted so it makes life so much easier. So in my bowl here I have some all-purpose flour. I'm going to add in some baking powder which is our raising agent and just wait. These guys get so bubbly and beautiful. Add a little bit of sugar and of course, a little bit of salt for flavor and then just mix these ingredients together. Now lots of different countries do have their own version of buñuelos. You know, they're very popular in Spain also. Often there they can be more of a fritter or like a doughnut, fried. And they are also, you know, dusted in cinnamon sugar at the very end so they kind of have churro vibes which just makes them so delicious. Often at the end people will pour over a piloncillo syrup which is kind of syrupy and it goes all over and makes them like extra good. It has kind of caramel flavors. Those are our dry ingredients. Pretty straightforward. I have a little bowl here and into this I'm going to add in a room temperature egg, a little bit of vanilla extract for flavor because vanilla is one of the important ingredients in this recipe. For my vanilla I like to use Rodell brand. It's really good quality and I use it in all my baking. And then some melted butter. Give those ingredients a little whisk together and add it straight into your dough. Make sure you get every last bit out there. So my tea has steeped for long enough and the liquid has cooled down so I'm going to strain it and reserve that liquid. And now I'm going to add it into my dough. And just by hand you're just going to mix it together until it forms a ball. When you're adding in the tea don't add it in all at once because sometimes you might not need every bit of liquid so add in the majority and mix it around and see if it forms a dough. If it looks a little bit dry like maybe mine does here, I'm going to add that splash extra and just kind of knead it in the bowl until it comes together and forms kind of a tight enough dough. Just like this. This is how you know when you've done good. A clean bowl and a smooth ball of dough. So now what I'm going to do is wrap this guy in cling wrap and let it rest in the fridge for around 30 minutes. We just want that gluten to relax and it'll be so much easier to roll once we did that. So it's popped into the fridge and we'll come back and we can start to roll and fry him up. Our dough is chilled. I've started to heat my oil there behind me. Just on low to get it nice and warm because it can take some time. A little bit of flour, not too much because flour can actually make your life more difficult to roll. And we are going to divvy up this dough into 12 balls. Just like that. As even as possible. And then we're going to take each piece of dough and just shape it into a ball just like this. So make sure that we get that lovely round bunuelo. Just like that. Sometimes your palm is the best surface. So here I have all my little balls. We're going to lay over some cling wrap over them while they're resting because we don't want them to dry out and form a skin. And let them sit here for around 5-10 minutes. The gluten needs to relax again and just make it so much easier to roll out. Then they'll be ready to go. So you're going to want to roll the bunuelos as thin as possible because that's what will make them really crispy and it also makes them lovely and bubbly. So you're aiming for roughly around 7 1⁄2 inches or so. In and around that mark. Once you have the size, put it onto a plate and then we're just going to layer them with parchment paper to stop them sticking to each other as we're waiting to roll the next. And then all you have to do is grab the next piece of dough and just, same again, keep on rolling. And don't forget to flour your surface. That will make this process easier. This really is a fast recipe, like we're already frying them off, which makes me very happy because I'm excited to try them. This is the point where I'm going to tell you my 5 tips for frying safely at home. These are important so listen up. Number 1. Heavy bottom saucepan. A good quality heavy bottom saucepan and please make sure thick rim so you can easily get into the pot. I do not want oil coming too far off. So a good quality heavy bottom saucepan is perfect. Now tip number 2. A thermometer. Now for years I didn't use a thermometer, but actually they are so handy because it just helps you to know exactly what temperature your oil is. So you want the oil at around 350 for this recipe. If you don't have a thermometer, just make sure that your oil is not smoking at any point. Now tip number 3 is do not mess with that knob. Have it at an even heat the whole time and it will steadily heat up. You want to get your pan on early to let it slowly heat up. You don't want to crank it up and get the heat up really high. So just please don't be tempted to turn the knob. So I have my oil at 350 so I'm going to start with my first buñuelo. Lovely, look at that. Gorgeous. Beautiful. I have a spider here, oh my gosh. Now we have made these a few times here so you want to turn it over kind of early to make sure it doesn't get too brown on one side. Flip it over, let it get brown on this side and then we're going to flip it back over again. So there's kind of three flips here. Wow, that was so impressive. Gorgeous. So it'll take around two minutes on each side. It's nice and brown on that side so we're going to flip it over and another two minutes on the remaining side. Use a spider or a tongs, this is a spider FYI, just to push your buñuelo down there into the oil. That brown means flavor so don't be afraid to get them a nice brown color. So my fourth tip about frying is that if your oil is too hot, your dough will be raw in the middle, but if your oil is too cold, it's even more important, I'll tell you why. Oil will start to seep into your buñuelo and just make it kind of oily. If it's the right temperature, the oil will actually seal the buñuelo on the outside and not allowing the oil to soak in. So temperature is really important here. Look at that. Beautiful. Drain off that oil. A little shaky, shaky, shaky. And then over here to drain on your rack. While your buñuelo is hot, go in there with your cinnamon sugar. That oil will help the sugar stick there. Look at that. Oh my gosh. I'm going to send these to the park with George later for his friends. He's going to be the most popular kid there. So when frying, I always recommend do not walk away from your pot of oil and just if you need help, ask somebody, you know, a grown up, because you know, it can be quite tricky to work with hot oil, so just make sure you're as safe as possible. Here is my fifth tip. You do not have to throw away this oil. You get to use it again. So here's what you want to do. Let it cool down completely. Then we're going to pass the cool oil through a sieve that's lined with a kitchen paper. That's going to filter out any of the little bits of dough, any little bits of impurities that got in there while frying. And what's left over is brand new oil. Pour it into a container, put a lid on, label it that it's used oil, and then store it in your cupboard for your next time you're frying something off. Okay that's it. Our bunuelos are ready. You have your tips for frying. Now it's time to party. Bunuelos are definitely to be enjoyed straight away when they're nice and crisp and even still warm. These look so impressive and it was such an easy recipe to make. If you like churros, you're going to love this recipe because they've got even more crunch with all of that lovely cinnamon sugar. And you do get that lovely warm spice flavor from the anise. This is really a special dessert. Ah-ha! My favorite part of the job. Light, airy, but still warm. Cinnamon sugar just makes you come back for more and more and more. Put these on your baking list this holiday season. They are an absolute treat. Thank you so much for watching. Stick around, I've got hours more content for you to check out and I'll see you back here again same time, same place next week.