Rosettes, attempt #2

Ah, rosettes, one of my favorite Christmas treats from childhood. For those who are unfamiliar with them, they are a Swedish fried-dough cookie with sugar on top, formed by putting a hot iron with the rosette pattern into the bowl of batter, then dipping the iron, now partially covered in a thin layer of batter, into hot oil and frying. The last time I made Swedish rosettes with my grandma's recipe, the result was this (as I described in writing to some friends):

"Yesterday I made my first stab at making one of my grandma's traditional holiday treats: Swedish rosettes.
Hoping that the first batch ever would be great, against all indications from experienced rosette makers including my mom's mother, a friend in Madison and my dad's mother that the first batch would be disappointing, I dove with gusto into the frying process.
At six o’clock, I was sad and gave up before I even came close to running out of batter. Entering the third dozen of them, I only had one that looked and tasted and crisped right. Andrew and I shared it. The rest, which after half an hour were floppy and tasted like cold grease, I trashed so they would stop sitting there and reminding me of failure.
Someday I will try making this treat again, but I need a little time to get over being sad about the wasted batch."

For the second attempt this weekend, I tried to control more of the elements that can be finicky. Those include: weather conditions, oil type, oil temperature, oil depth, batter consistency, iron temperature, fry time, cooling apparatus, getting the rosette off the iron without breaking. Really, as Grandma would say, every part about it is finicky.

Weather
Grandma recommends making rosettes on a clear, dry, sunny winter day. These don't come around all too often in central Illinois, and I've decided that the attempt #1, which was closer to Christmas, must have been on the wrong day because it was too warm. There was a little snow melting, which I think must have added moisture into the air. The temperature on Saturday was below freezing, it was sunny, and the humidity level according to the local weather website I checked said humidity was 50 percent.

Oil
I had already fried before with canola oil and I didn't think that the oil was the problem, so I used canola again. Last time, I fried in my 9-inch cast-iron skillet. The oil didn't seem all too deep, but I forged ahead anyway. This time, I trotted out the cast-iron Dutch oven and filled it halfway. This ends up being about a quart of oil, which is 2 or 3 inches deep in my pot. Wanted to have more oil so that the temperature would be easier to maintain. The recommended frying temperature in Grandma's recipe was 375 degrees Fahrenheit. This time, I checked that temperature with the instant-read thermometer before the first rosette and after every other one thereafter. At the very least, the temperature was easier to read reliably with the deeper oil, because I could dip the entire end of the thermometer into the oil without coming close to touching the bottom of the pan.

Batter
As the recipe is not my own, I won't be providing it here on this site. There are usually recipes included with the rosette irons when you buy them. For added friendliness to my tummy, I substituted two egg whites for each egg and used soy milk instead of dairy milk. I also measured the flour differently, measuring with the cup before sifting instead of the other way around. I think I ended up with a little more flour in the batter, because it looked slightly thicker than the batter from attempt #1. That seemed to be a good thing in the end.

I'll go back to the original recipe when making them again, I think, as I always want to eat so many that the grease itself starts making my tummy unhappy. Maybe I'll rein it in a little when I know they are chock-full of dairy and egg.

Irons
Thanks to my employer making a special order for me and giving me some extra rosette irons that were laying around in ancient inventory, I have a nice little set of irons now. There are two different cup shapes, one five-pointed star and one eight-pointed star. They really are made of iron so they can hold heat and not warp. In both rosette attempts, I seasoned the irons properly before frying and between each rosette, I let the iron sit in the oil to heat up before putting it in the batter.

Dipping the iron in batter

Fry time
In attempt #1, I counted to 30 after plunging the battered iron into the oil. In attempt #2, I tried to get a closer approximation of 30 to 35 seconds, as I think I had been counting too fast before. I also took a more critical look at the browning before pulling the rosette from the oil. If I'd already counted to 35 and the thing wasn't golden brown yet, I kept it in the oil a little longer. In all, the rosettes in attempt #2 each had a longer frying time than most of those in attempt #1.

Frying the rosette

Cooling apparatus
As in attempt #1, I made do with the cooling rack possibilities available to me, as I don't own a proper cookie cooling rack. I pulled a rack out of the oven and laid it on the counter, covered with paper towels to soak up stray oil. This worked out fine.

Rosette cups waiting to be eaten, cooling upside down so the bottoms won't sit on the oily paper

Removing rosette from the iron
My preferred method after attempt #2: run a very small knife around the pattern to loosen the edges from the iron, push off gently with a fork. Attempt #1 was no problem getting the rosettes to come off: some came off right in the oil, some just flopped off the iron as soon as they came out of the oil, some needed a little push from the fork.

The end result
Success!! Attempt #2 yielded crispy rosettes, and dipped in granulated sugar they were sweet and delightful. I have to admit there were still a few soggy ones, which I ate before letting Andrew pick which ones he wanted to eat.

I didn't notice any difference in taste between the original recipe and the one with Heather-friendly substitutes. I recall when Grandma made them Heather-friendly once she commented that they were a bit tougher than with the original recipe. I didn't notice this until eating the ones that were still left on Sunday. But hey, a little tougher than the original was better than "floppy and tasting of cold grease."

The learning curve for me on these cookies is about as steep as for pie crust. With limited success under my belt, I'm motivated to try again.

As long as I had a pot full of oil, I fried up some homemade "chips" for dinner. I like crispy homemade potato chips, but Andrew prefers something thicker like potato wedges, so I compromised and cut my potato chips thick. They ended up being extra-crispy on the outside and soft in the center, and we were both very happy. I first boiled them all in low-temperature oil at 250 degrees Fahrenheit until they were tender. For the second fry, I turned up the oil temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and waited till they were light brown. This is a picture of "almost done."