How to make soft Mandazi/Biegnets

March 2, 2019

Jambo! So, theres been one heck of a debate and its about food names. I grew up in Mombasa- Kenya and over there we call these Mandazi because they aren’t hollow inside unlike the ‘Mahambri’ that has a lovely air pocket, perfect for stuffing with coconut beans. Our neighbours in Tanzania call it half cake, its also known as Puff puff in west Africa and Biegnets New Orleans. Theres a lot of info out there on the origin of these little pillowy delights and most of it points to Arab influence which is coincidently heavily seen in Swahili cooking.

As far as the name debate in Africa goes, I tried to get to the bottom of things and researched. Guess what i found out? Everyone is as confused as i am about the name. So, round here we are just going to call these chunky donuts, Mandazi. This recipe gives you incredibly soft Mandazi that stay soft even after a day!

How to make soft Mandazi/Biegnets

mandazi, baking paper, icing sugar, biegnets, white plate

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Author: Vanessa

Ingredients

Scale

Dry ingredients:
3 cups of all Purpose flour
2 tsp instant yeast
5 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp salt

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside

Wet ingredients:
1 cup luke warm milk
4 tbsp melted butter/margarine
1 whole egg

Instructions

Add the wet ingredients into a separate bowl and mix well.
Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and knead into a dough.
Cover with a damp cloth and set aside to rise for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
Roll out the dough (1cm in height) on a lightly floured surface. Cut out shapes. You could cut them into small squares or diamond shapes. You can even use a glass to cut out round shapes.
In a thick bottomed pan, add enough oil to deep fry. The oil is ready to use when you put a wooden skewer in it and bubbles form around the skewer.
Drop in the cut dough shapes and lower the heat to avoid the outside burning while the inside is uncooked. Flip the mandazi over every 30 sec and cook for about 2 min.
Enjoy!