Recipe Chinese Laughing Balls

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
Staff member
Joined
19 Apr 2015
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5:28 AM
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Location
Maidstone, Kent, UK
I couldn't resist the title of this recipe. So called because when deep-fried the balls split slightly to reveal a 'smile' shape. I'm not sure all mine look like they are laughing, though... Other than swapping the egg for aquafaba to make it vegan and adding some vanilla, I pretty much followed the recipe here: https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/chinese-laughing-balls-fried-sesame-balls/

I halved the recipe and I made tiny balls of dough (about 2 cm diameter). They puff up to about three or four times their size!

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Ingredients

300 g (2 1/2 cups) cake flour
1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
a tiny pinch of salt
150 g (scant 3/4 cup) caster sugar
50ml water (warm water)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
3 tbsp aquafaba
a few drops of vanilla essence
1 cup white sesame seeds
Method
  1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and set aside. Dissolve sugar in warm water. Whisk aquafaba and vanilla essence together, until frothy.
  2. Mix all the dry ingredients with sugar water, aquafaba and oil. Knead into a soft dough. The dough should be quite soft but non-sticky. If it is too sticky to handle, add around 1 tablespoon of flour each time and knead well until a well shaped dough.
  3. Then divide into 40 small portions and round one into a around ball and roll into sesame seeds. Repeat to finish all.
  4. Heat up oil to 160 degree C, lower your heat and dip the sesame balls in. Deep-fry for 3 minutes with medium to slow fire. Stir the balls at intervals so they can be evenly fried.
 
Caster sugar equals our super-fine sugar, like if you put regular sugar in a food processor.

Icing sugar is our 10x sugar.
 
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