Fried Fruit Cookies

These fried cookies are closer to filled doughnuts than anything you’d pull from an oven. A soft dough spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg gets wrapped around a spoonful of jelly, rolled into balls, and deep-fried until golden. The outside goes crispy while the jelly melts into a hot, fruity center.

Fruit juice in the dough (raspberry is the standout choice, though apple works fine) reinforces the fruity theme from the inside out. It adds flavor and moisture that you won’t get from water or milk.

The shaping matters. Flatten each piece of dough, drop the jelly in the center, and pinch the dough around it completely. Any gaps and the jelly leaks into the oil, which means empty cookies and splattered grease.

A generous dusting of powdered sugar while they’re still warm sticks to the surface and gives them that classic fried dough look. Eat them fresh. They’re best within the first hour while the outside is still shatteringly crisp and the jelly is warm.

Pro Tips

• Keep the oil steady. Too cool and the cookies absorb oil and turn greasy. Too hot and they brown before cooking through.
• Use thick jelly or jam, not runny preserves. Thin fillings burst through the dough during frying.
• Don’t overfill. Half a teaspoon of jelly is plenty. More than that and you can’t seal the dough properly.
• Fry in small batches so the oil temperature doesn’t drop.

Variations

• Fill with Nutella instead of jelly for a chocolate-hazelnut center.
• Use apple cider as the juice and apple butter as the filling for an autumn version.
• Roll in cinnamon sugar instead of powdered sugar for a snickerdoodle-style finish.