Funnel Cake

If I'm not obsessing about something (often food) it's a bad sign. As a general rule, I eat when my feelings range from happy, to normal, to so-so, and bored, with my appetite atrophying as I approach sad or discouraged.

I was feeling elated the other night, was suffering from a over-abundance of manic energy. It was president's day, and I had gotten home in less than two hours, which in my world counts as a reason to celebrate. The first thing that came to mind was donuts. It was already after 8 pm, so that likelihood of finding fresh donuts was very unlikely. Then I started thinking about funnel cake. I remembered my friend had made fried Oreos...dipped in funnel cake batter that she had whipped up with some seemingly basic ingredients.

Funnel cake recipes are deceptively uneasy. That is perhaps why normal people don't make funnel cake at home. It's public food, usually shared, and there's something taboo about making for yourself at home on a Monday night. I should have been ashamed of myself, but I've long accepted I have no dignity when it comes to food. My search of online recipes yielded several promising options. The Food Network's Alton Brown had a recipe that deviate from the standard by almost a entire stick of butter. I doubted that funnel cake contained a pound of butter. This seemed to be the consensus of some disgruntled foodies that pointed out that the recipe was a Choux recipe (dough for eclairs, beignets etc) and NOT funnel cake. I also learned from these rants that funnel cake is essentially deep fried pancake batter.

How long did it take me to formulate the plan to deep fry pancake batter? Sadly not long enough.

Three minutes later I was heating up a gigantic pan of oil and transferring pancake batter into the bottle I would use to replicate the pouring of the funnel. But the oil wasn't hot enough. My heart sank along with the batter to the bottom of the pan before puffing and rising to the surface. No desire, or need to taste it to tell that the whole thing was a hot steaming oily mess. This fat bloated wretch of a funnel cake was quickly discarded; but I wasn't done yet, I was happy and determined so I improvised with funnel cake strips. Flavor and texture were good, but still way too oil; sick to your stomach oily. I had wolfed down two, making my digestive tract literally a slippery slope.

The deed was done, the mess was made, and my craving for funnel cake had been smothered in oil, fried up and quickly discarded. Despite the imperfect results, I'm still worried that I may become proficient at making funnel cake. All it would take is one good day to send me hurtling over that greasy edge.