Pumpkin fritters or also known as pampoenkoekies in Afrikaans are a huge favorite in our house! My children are adults now but I still put a smile on their faces with pumpkin fritters!
Pumpkin fritters are typically made by mixing cooked and mashed pumpkin with flour, sugar, and other ingredients such as eggs, milk, and baking powder, and then deep-frying the mixture until golden brown and crispy.
I serve mine with a sweet syrup but you can also sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar or icing sugar.
Here is my recipe, I've always used the recipe in an old Afrikaans cookbook called Knuppeldik, and adapted it a little bit.
Ingredients
750g (3 cups) Cooked, mashed pumpkin – that will be more or less 1kg raw pumpkin - I like butternut but you can use whatever pumpkin you have available.
2 Eggs
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
275g (2 cups) Self-Rising Flour
3 teaspoons Baking powder
1lt Cooking oil – Sunflower/Canola/Vegetable oil
Peel, de-seed, and chop your pumpkin, place the raw pumpkin in a pot and cover with water, bring to a boil, and cook till nice and soft. Drain water and leave to cool, then mash till smooth.
In a large mixing bowl add the pumpkin, eggs, and salt.
Sieve the flour, cinnamon, and baking powder over the mix and combine well to form a soft dough.
Pour oil into a medium pot and heat over medium heat, but not too hot otherwise fritters will be brown on the outside and raw inside. When you drop your dough into the oil it should bubble around the dough and not sink to the bottom. Dip your spoon into the oil and then scoop up tablespoons full of dough to fry.
Drop spoonful’s in hot oil and fry till golden and cooked in the middle – if the fritters are still a little raw on the inside don’t stress as they will cook a bit more when you pour the syrup over them.
Drain on kitchen paper.
Syrup
400g White sugar
250ml Water
125ml Milk
1 Cinnamon stick
25g Butter
2 teaspoons Corn flour (Maizena)
Add all the ingredients to a saucepan except the corn flour and bring to a boil.
Add the corn flour to a 1/4 cup of cold water, and mix till smooth.
Add the corn flour to the hot syrup and simmer for 1 minute, discard the cinnamon stick.
Pour over the hot pumpkin fritters.
Here is a photo of the fritters in the making, the sauce will be heated up and given a good whisk before pouring over the warm fritters.