Fried Dough Balls Recipe | Dominican Buñuelos

Dominican Buñuelos are fried dough balls soaked in vanilla cinnamon syrup. This traditional Latin dessert recipe is typically made and served during Easter week. Buñuelos are made from either yuca or potatoes.

📝 Ingredients

• 1-1/2 lbs of boiled yuca
• 1-1/2 Tablespoons of butter
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 3 Tablespoons of sugar
• 1 1/2 cups frying oil
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 strip of lime zest
• 1 star anise
• 2 sticks of cinnamon
• 8 cloves
• 1 vanilla pod
• 3 pods of cardamom
• 4 cup of water

👨‍🍳 Instructions

1. 1--- How to make Buñuelos or Fried Dough Balls: ---
2. 2Peel, cut, and boil yuca until it is soft - around 10 minutes.
3. 3Cooldown the yuca to room temperature. Remove the hard fiber center.
4. 4Pass the yuca through the meat grinder (or food mill or electric meat grinder).
5. 5In a large bowl place the grinded yuca, egg, baking powder, salt, sugar, and butter. Mix all the ingredients until is well combined.
6. 6Start to make the balls using an ice cream scoop and then shape them into a nice round ball. Place them on a baking sheet.
7. 7You can place the tray in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Doing this will help to keep the ball shape during the frying process but this is not necessary to do in our traditional recipe.
8. 8Heat the oil over medium heat in a large saucepan. When the oil is really hot, place the balls into the oil. Be careful that the hot oil doesn’t splatter.
9. 9Do this process in batches and don't overcrowd the pan. Turn them until each side has a nice golden brown color.
10. 10Place them on a plate lined with a paper towel to remove excess oil.
11. 11Place the Buñuelos in a large bowl with a lid. Put the lid on after they cool down completely
12. 12--- How to make the Aromatic Vanilla Cinnamon Syrup: ---
13. 13Mix all the ingredients and bring to a quick boil. Then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the liquid has reduced to half. Make sure to stir constantly.
14. 14Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.
15. 15--- To serve the Buñuelos de Yuca: ---
16. 16After the Buñuelos and the syrup have cooled to room temperature, pour the syrup over the Buñuelos and make sure they all get covered completely. Let them soak into the aromatic syrup.
17. 17In most cases, you will need to make more syrup because the Buñuelos most likely will soak up all the syrup... which is a good thing