Papanasi
Romanian doughnuts of cottage cheese, semolina and egg, cooked until golden and served with soured cream and sour cherry jam.
Photograph credit: Papanasi cu cirese (image of Papanași on Wikidata Q689984) by Nicubunu · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Don't Make These Mistakes
Drain the cheese well.
Keep your hands floured.
Serve warm.
Cooking Papanasi
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Mix the cheese, eggs, semolina, flour, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, baking powder and salt to a soft dough.
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With floured hands, shape 6 balls and press a hole through the centre of each to make a ring. Shape 6 small balls for the hats.
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Heat the oil to 170°C / 340°F. Fry the rings and small balls in batches for 4 minutes, turning, until deep golden. Drain.
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Serve each ring with a small ball on top, with the soured cream and cherry jam spooned over.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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What's Going On Here
The cheese in the dough is the secret, and there is nothing complicated about the method. Papanași are a Romanian dessert of fried cheese dough, shaped into a ring with a smaller ball placed on top as a hat, then served with soured cream and a spoonful of tart cherry jam. The dough is soft, slightly sweet and quite rich.
Use a dry cheese: drained cottage cheese or fresh curd cheese, pressed in a sieve for 30 minutes until the liquid is gone. Wet cheese makes a sticky dough that falls apart in the oil. Mix with semolina, flour, an egg, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and a pinch of baking powder. The dough should be soft and just firm enough to shape. It should hold a ring, not run.
With floured hands, shape a ball the size of a tangerine, press a hole in the centre with your finger and widen it into a ring. Roll a smaller ball and set it aside as the hat.
Cook in oil at 170°C / 340°F for about 4 minutes, turning, until deep golden all over. Stack the hat on top. Spoon over soured cream and cherry jam, and eat at once.
Storage and Reheating
Best eaten warm, straight away.
Good With
- Black tea
- Sour cherry jam
- Soured cream
- Coffee
Common Questions About Papanasi
How long does Papanasi take to make?
25 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of draining, so allow 1 hour 10 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
Papanasi Nutrition Facts
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (how much frying oil the food takes up cannot be known from the recipe). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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