If you want to surprise your family with a delicious breakfast dish or a unique snack, try the traditional Hungarian lángos recipe for simple fried dough.
You can’t help but love fried dough. They’re similar to doughnuts, but bigger, fluffy on the edges and crispy on the inside.
The recipe for fried dough is very easy and it contains the simplest of ingredients. All it requires is water, flour, yeast, salt and a little sugar. It is even simpler than bread dough recipe because it requires no fat. Fried dough is fried in a hot oil bath like classic doughnuts.
It can be served plain for breakfast with a glass of yoghurt or cold, spread with a layer of sour cream and sprinkled with grated cheese. The classic Hungarian recipe also calls for a little garlic, which is mashed and mixed with the cream. If you want fried dough for dessert, sprinkle a little powdered sugar over them.
Follow the list of ingredients and steps below to make Hungarian fried dough.
Hungarian Lángos recipe
Ingredients for the dough
- 750 g fine flour
- 450 ml warm water
- 30 g fresh yeast or 7 g dried yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- About 500 ml sunflower oil for frying
To serve
- Sour cream
- Grated cheese
- Optionally 2-3 cloves of garlic
How to prepare
To prepare the dough it is necessary to use quality flour. Type 000 flour is one of the options, but type 450 flour is also good.
Start by preparing the yeast. Put the crumbled yeast in a bowl and add the sugar over it. Stir with a spatula until they liquefy. Then add 2-3 tablespoons of warm water and a teaspoon of flour. Mix the ingredients well and leave at room temperature for 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
Meanwhile, sift the flour through a sieve into a large bowl. Mix the flour with the salt, then press your hand in the middle. Put the activated yeast in the hollowed middle. Pour in a little warm water and stir the ingredients in the bowl until you obtain a compact dough. This kind of dough will have a slightly softer consistency than the dough for classic doughnuts. Cover the dough with a tea towel and leave to rise for about an hour.
How to shape and bake simple fried dough
Once the dough is completely set, place a deep pot or pan on the stovetop. Add the oil and heat up. With oiled hands, break off small pieces of dough and shape them into balls on the oiled table. Flatten into thin, round sheets of dough 20-22 cm in diameter. Dip them one at a time into the hot oil.
Let the pieces brown on the first side until golden, then turn them over and brown them nicely on the second side. Transfer the browned pieces to paper towels to absorb the excess oil. You can then transfer them to serving plates.
They are delicious served plain, but we recommend trying the version with sour cream and grated cheese. You won’t regret it!
You can also serve them as a dessert sprinkled with sugar or with jam.