Egg Free, Dairy Free Funnel Cakes

While at Hersheypark, Jazlyn saw other people eating funnel cakes and asked me if I could make them for her. I love funnel cakes and order one when I take one of my other girls for an alone day there. Now both of my girls love them and I wanted Jazlyn to experience a funnel cake too. Over the last year, I've tried making them a few times based on my mom's recipe, substituting the eggs with various ingredients. They were good, but the taste and texture weren't the way I wanted them. I decided to try using yeast in place of the eggs. The result was a crispy on the outside, cakey on the inside perfectly flavored funnel cake. Jazlyn said she didn't want the traditional confectioner's sugar topping. Instead, she wanted to try dipping them in chocolate syrup like she saw at Hersheypark. I was so excited for hert to take her first bite. She absolutely loved them. My other girls loved them and also ate them dipped in the chocolate syrup. I, however, still ate mine with the traditional confectioner's sugar.

Funnel Cakes

1/4 cup luke warm water
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
3 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups soy milk, warmed slightly if cold
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Oil for frying

Thoroughly combine the water, yeast and sugar then allow the mixture to set for 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the soy milk, vanilla and yeast mixture then stir until thoroughly combined. In a deep pan, heat the oil to 365-375 degrees. Fill a Ziploc bag with the batter. Snip off one of the corners to form a small hole. Squeeze the batter into the oil. You can form circular patterns or whatever shape you desire. Fry for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Use tongs to flip over the funnel cake then fry for an additional 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the funnel cake from the oil and place it on a paper towel to drain.
* If desired, you can scoop the batter then drop it into the oil to create more of a puffy round doughnut instead of the funnel cake strips.
*  If you have a funnel, you can drop the dough using it so that the funnel cakes are thinner and look more like the ones you would buy at a fair or amusement park.
* Wonderful topped with confectioner’s sugar, crushed strawberries, pie filling, chocolate syrup, applesauce, etc.