The Easiest Homemade Elephant Ears
The next town over from where we live, Holland, Michigan, is internationally known for their Tulip Festival. It is a Dutch tradition, where the streets are lined with tulips, bands from all over the United States come and play in the parades, and not to mention, food vendors come in droves. And that means ELEPHANT EARS.
Buying an elephant ear from a vendor is a bit of an investment, but to me, it’s worth every bite! I remember making them when I was in high school for my foods class, but had yet to try them again. Well, due to the coronavirus, this year’s Tulip Festival was cancelled, which I’ll admit, I was very sad about this. Not that I needed my elephant ear, but this was the first year I had a Dutch costume for our daughter and we were looking so forward to the parades. Although, while still walking and driving through the tulips and tulip lanes (thankfully those still came up!), we saw an elephant ear vendor and sure enough, next door, there was someone selling cotton candy. Yes, this was in the heat of the virus, but we didn’t care. We grabbed those masks and got those ears and cotton candy!
So when we got home, I told our daughter that we would make homemade elephant ears, I mean, since she asked… Well, again, due to the coronavirus, I had a very difficult time finding frozen bread dough, which is what my recipe called for. I was going to make my own, but I needed yeast, which was also difficult to find. BUT. I found frozen dinner rolls and let me tell you, I’m sold!
Benefits of using dinner rolls:
- Portion control
- Takes less time to thaw
- Easier to roll out
- Cooks faster in oil
This is an easy recipe that you can even make with your kiddos (just not the frying part of course). Here’s what you will need:
- frozen dinner rolls (or bread dough)
- vegetable oil
- cinnamon
- sugar
- thermometer
- rolling pin
- tongs
- paper towel-lined plate
Start off by thawing out the dinner rolls. You can choose to make as many as you want!
Roll out the dinner roll – it doesn’t have to be perfect. Roll out as thick as you want. If you want the elephant ear more doughy, keep it a little thicker.
Meanwhile, start heating up a pan with vegetable oil. I put about 1/2-3/4 inch of oil in the pan and heated it up to 350. This is where having a thermometer is handy!
Next, you can mix some sugar and cinnamon together, or you can just sprinkle both on top separately, when they are done frying.
The dough is all ready to be put in the pan. I usually fit about 2 comfortably at a time.
Allow to fry a minute or more on each side (keep in eye on them), flip, and then put on a paper towel-lined plate:
Then immediately sprinkle at least the sugar on top so that it can melt into the elephant ear (YUM!)
I suggest making 2 per person because you won’t be able to stop at 1…
This really is the easiest recipe! Outside of having to thaw out the rolls, you can have these elephant ears made in 15-20 minutes. And your family will thank you!
