Make 365: Day 3 - Deep Fried Junk Food

In years past, we've gone to the fair (Fair! The Alachua County Fair!) in the fall for our yearly dose of nausea-inducing spins on rusting rides that test my questionable decision to live without health insurance. Besides tempting fate, the Fair has yet another draw - Deep Fried Everything.

I don't know if it's just the south (I'm pretty sure the phenomenon reaches even beyond Kentucky), but people love to eat random deep fried junk at carnivals and fairs. The love-affair with fried food goes even beyond the normal fare, funnel cakes and turkey legs, to include the more exotic Snickers bars, twinkies, and pickles. Unfortunatly for new sneakers everywhere, the consumption of thse gastrointestinal bombs is usually followed up with a ride on the magical vomit machine.

And since we missed the fair this year - woe - it feels only fitting to carry on the tradition by deep frying a random selection of fructose-laden consumables from the dollar store.

Make 365: Day 3 - Deep Fried Junk Food (a beginners guide)

NEED:

Junk Food (anything will work. Seriously. Candy bars, cookies, even things that have already been fried. You know that twinkie that's been hiding in the back of your cupboard since you were twelve? That's not expired, that's vintage!)
Flour
Milk
Oil & Pan (or a friend who works at a place with a deep-frier and a liberal manager. Thanks guy!)

Bear in mind that these are not the most appetizing pictures ever, and all this stuff ends up in your colon. Mmm.

For this, we picked some Twix bars, a Milkyway, and some generic chocolate/vanilla oreos.

First, pour some flour in a bowl, and stir in milk, a little at a time, until it develops a paste-like consistency (already appetizing). If you add too much milk, you can always go back and put in more flour.



Pick what food you want to fry up, and coat liberally with the flour/milk mix. Get it on all sides, until they look like big drippy oddly shaped marshmellows, or your food will probably break apart during the frying, and you'll mess up a whole batch of oil.



If you're lucky enough to have found someone to con into letting you use their fryer, make sure you coat the frying basket with non-stick spray. It keeps things from.. sticking. Should you skimp, your lovely deep fried treats will be inseparable from the lovely fry basket. If you're doing this at home with a pan and some oil, heat the oil like you would to fry anything else, and use tongs, or something similar to remove the pieces once they're done.



The fun part: Dump them in the oil! It goes without saying that this stuff is hot. It pops, it bubbles, it burns. Be careful. When they turn brown and start to float, they're done, and you can take them out.



They look tasty, huh? Unfortunately, the Twix bar really underperformed. I was so excited about it, too. The chocolate got so melty during the frying that the coating just slid off when we took it out. And part of one of the Oreos stuck to the bottom of the frying basket and lost its coating. So.. use a lot of non-stick spray!! The vanilla Oreo knockoffs came out the best, I think. Pickles would have been interesting, but no one wanted to bite the bullet and volunteer to eat one.

Mission: Stomachache achieved!

Now to find a merry-go-round, because it's not Fall until you feel nauseous.

(Please be smart, don't fry up anything inedible or poisony. You only get points for creativity if you're not dead.)