Homemade Fried Flower Shaped Appetizer

For the dough:
Sift the flour. Place the flour and salt in a large bowl. Mix. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Next add approximately 1/2 of the egg yolk and the water. Mix well with your hands. Try to work quickly.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 10 -15 minutes.

Now take the chilled dough and roll out into a large square that is about 1/8 inch thick, using a rolling pin. Cut it into 12 round shapes (diameter 2 inches) using a pastry cutter or cookie cutter.

Next take 6 of the rounds and, using a sharp knife, make straight little cuts in towards the center of the circle (don’t cut all the way through the circle – you are cutting about a half inch in towards the center, kind of like bicycle wheel spokes). Then take each of the 6 cut circles and place one on top of each of the uncut dough rounds (so you have a solid round underneath, and a bicycle wheel cut round on top). You can brush a little water in the center of the plain round first, in order to help the two pieces stick together. If needed, you can also place a wooden round stick through the center of the spoke round and the bottom one, to make them stay together.

After that deep fry them in hot oil (over medium heat), until they are golden brown . Remove them from the oil onto absorbent paper to drain for a minute or two. As it fries, the top round should puff up like flower petals.

For the meringue: Place the egg white and sugar in a bowl and whip the mixture using an electric hand mixer. After 5 minutes of whipping, add food coloring. Continue to beat the mixture until stiff and standing in peaks.

After that take the cooled flower shaped pastries and get them ready to fill. Next put the meringue in a pastry bag with a piping tip and pipe the filling into the center of the appetizer. Next sprinkle some colored candy on top, if desired. I’ve done this in the photo above.

Serve and enjoy.