Ingredients
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Divided
- 1/4 cup Warm Water About 110 °F
- 1 tbsp Dry Active Yeast
- 3 Ripe Bananas
- 1/2 Cup Warm Evaporate Milk May use regular whole milk
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 3 1/4 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/2 Cup Raisins Rinsed and soaked
- 4-6 Cups Oil suitable for frying
Instructions
- Dissolve 1 tablespoon of sugar in warm water, then add the yeast. Mix together, cover and let rest in a warm place until the yeast blooms and gets at least a 1 inch frothy rise (head)
- While the yeast is blooming, add the bananas to a bowl that is large enough for the dough to double in size. Then crush the bananas with a fork until there are no big chunks remaining
- Next add the bloomed yeast, sugar, evaporated milk and vanilla extract to the crushed bananas. Mix together well and set aside
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and salt together. Then Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together to form a soft batter. Cover and let rest in a warm place for at least an hour or until the dough doubles in size
Cooking the Gulgula
- When ready to cook, add oil to a saucepan deep enough to have 3 inches of oil and bring up to temperature on medium heat. If you have a rapid read thermometer, the oil should be about 300 °F. If using a large dutch oven, you may need more than 6 cups of oil
- Using a cookie scoop, or two spoons drop small balls of dough into the hot oil. Dough will sink to the bottom of the pot and then float to the top a few seconds later. Fry gulgula in two or more batches so as to not over crowd the saucepan and decrease the temperature of the oil
- Fry for about 3 minutes. Turn the gulgula once or twice for even cooking and browning. When gulgula is dark brown all over, remove from the heat and let rest on a few paper towel sheets. Allow to cool before serving.
Notes
- Keeping your oil better 300 °F and 325 °F will allow the dough to cook all the way through. If the oil is colder than this the gulgula may be soggy and oily.
- It should take about 3 minutes total to fry each batch. If the dough becomes dark brown before 3 minutes is up, then your oil is too hot and the gulgula may not cook all the way through.
- If the dough balls don’t rise to the top a few seconds after dropping, use a spatula to gently free them from the bottom of the pan or they will burn on one side. (Metemgee)
