3rd Annual Deep Fry Weekend

My brother and I have started a delicious tradition that we happily carry on with.

Every year we get together during Magrath celebrations and have a deep fry event.  We experiment and make carnival type foods, trying something new each year.
Our first year we made Twinkies, Twix Bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Year two we again made Peanut Butter cups (mini this time), Twinkies and our new favourite Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

Before we get to year three I'd like to submit a brief photography disclaimer.  I am not a food photographer nor did I even try to be one.  Also, this event happens at night after the kids go to bed in my parents house that has the most yellow lighting ever, so forgive to really poor photos.

We decided last year that we could skip the Twinkies so they were out and we knew we'd again make the cookie dough but we wanted to expand a little.

We were using bacon this year and didn't want out cookie dough to taste like bacon so we ate dessert first.
Both years we have used and loved this recipe but we use a funnel cake batter to dip in and there are enough of us that we double it.  This is such a favourite that we'll make it again next year but I think we'll make them much smaller so you can eat a couple.

Here's an inside shot.  The chocolate gets all melty but the dough doesn't cook, it stays gooey and delicious (the dough is egg free so no worries there).

Then we started in on our savoury.  Bacon wrapped corn!  So delicious but I've made this on the BBQ before.  While it was easier to fry it there was no flavour addition, just extra fat so next year we'll skip the fry and just serve steamed corn on the side.

Here's a amusing story... when I made it on the bbq I secured the bacon with toothpicks but they turned out to be unnecessary and they burned anyway so I didn't toothpick these.  We dropped the first one in the oil and the bacon instantly shriveled up and off the corn so we had a naked ear of corn and bit of shriveled bacon.  We toothpicked the rest :)

I've always wanted to dry bacon wrapped macaroni & cheese and this was the year.  Earlier in the day I made a homemade macaroni and I made the cheese sauce extra thick, then I let it cool to room temperature.  I scooped it into balls and then wrapped bacon around them using tooth picks to secure the bacon.

They came out looking like this, pretty hey?

Though if I'm honest most of them looked like this.  More bacon and more toothpicks, lesson learned.

These were super yummy but we all agreed that they would be just as good if you made macaroni and then added some chopped bacon, so we won't make these again either.

Lastly was my brother's addition, Deep Fried Doritos.

These sounded interesting and we were all excited.  We made up a batter you would use on fish, like a beer batter only we didn't use beer.  We dipped them and fried until golden.

Here's an inside shot, you can see the Doritos in there

We were unanimously disappointed.  We thought the Doritos would stay crispy but it ended up being a little chewy.  The flavour was good but not worth the effort to dip the chips.  Rob thought it would be a good idea to make a Doritos fritter, like a corn fritter, so he took a bunch of broken bits and battered them into a ball and fried but it wasn't any better.  Two thumbs down from us.

So there you have it, our 3rd annual Deep Fry was a success.  We didn't discover anything we'd like to carry on but most of the fun is trying something new anyway.  We already have a plan for next years menu, you can look forward to:

• Tempura Vegetables
• Onion Blossom
• Cookie Dough
• Steamed corn on the cob on the side