Photo by Clay Williams.
The grandmother of beignets and a distant cousin of zeppole, West Africa’s most popular form of fried dough, puff puff, is, as the name suggests, fried pillows of airy dough. On the streets of Lagos in Nigeria, in Cameroon and in Ghana, where this is just as popular, puff puff sellers grab a handful of dough, roll it into a ball, and thrust it into the fryer with one lightning-fast motion. What emerges is rolled in cinnamon sugar, and what you pop into your mouth is like a funnel cake ball crossed with a churro.
This dish is best served immediately (but the batter may be made up to 24 hours ahead).
Recipe notes
Back to topSee Related Recipes and Cooking Tips
51 Recipes From Our Favorite Cookbooks of the Year
Warning: These recipes might convince you to buy more cookbooks.31 Doughnut Recipes, Because Nothing Beats Fresh
Forget the bakery—make this morning favorite at home instead.Kwame Onwuachi Is Putting African Diasporic Cuisines in Conversation
“Diasporic cuisine,” writes Onwuachi, is “a writhing, thriving, living thing.” In this cookbook, he considers the connections between the food traditions of Louisiana, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and New York.
