Polish Angel Wings Cookies

Food is an important part of a balanced diet

 Franz Lebowitz

It’s the Carnival season. To be sure, it isn’t celebrated as pompously as in Rio or Venice, but we do have our own traditions and customs. One of them is making angel wings cookies and doughnuts. I think this is one of the most pleasant things you can do during Carnival here in Poland. Of course, each of the treats has its devoted fans. I like them both: following my heart - or to be more precise - my stomach, I would go for doughnuts. But if we take into account the preparation time, the angel wings should be called the winners. Some more advantages? They are light, delicate and crispy. The best when still warm. For those who count calories they are the lesser of two evils. The recipe comes from a Polish cookbook published by Reader's Digest and is very simple. You just have to remember to roll the dough as thin as possible. The angel wings will be then more crispy and fresh for a longer time. 

Ingredients:
300 g plain flour
4 egg yolks
1 whole egg
5 tablespoons sour cream (I used 18 %)
1 tablespoon rectified spirit (if you don’t have, use 1 tablespoon of 10 % vinegar or vodka)
pinch of salt

Method:
Mix the flour with the sour cream. Add the remaining ingredients (don’t pour the spirit directly on egg yolks, nor crack the eggs directly onto the spirit, otherwise they will curdle). Knead the dough until smooth. Roll the dough as thin as possible and cut into 3 x 10 cm sections. Cut along a slit in the middle of each strip and pull one end trough the slit. Deep fry in oil until they turn golden. Dry on paper towels and sprinkle with icing sugar.

While frying the cookies, it is good to put into oil a piece of sliced potato and keep changing the pieces every now and again. This trick prevents from heating the oil over its smoke point.

Here is a short video on how to form the cookies.