Desserts taste good. Deep-fried foods taste good. For those doing the math at home, that means that deep-fried desserts taste what? That’s right, good good. Or, rather, great!
There are tons of wonderful deep-fried dessert recipes out there, and we’ve collected together the best of them so that you have your pick of indulgent treats to enjoy after dinner.
1. Strawberry Cheesecake Chimichanga
A chimichanga, for those who don’t know, is a kind of deep-fried burrito, usually filled with things like meat, beans, and rice. However, this recipe adapts it with a filling of strawberry cheesecake.
Inventive, to say the least. With rich cream cheese, real strawberries, fresh lemon zest, and vanilla extract, the taste and texture of this dessert are delicious.
Fried correctly, the outside should be delightfully crispy to contrast with the lovely, smooth, cheesecake center. It’s hard to imagine a better dessert treat than this!
2. Homemade Churros
Who doesn’t love churros? This Spanish delight is a bit like a donut and can be made quite easily, with only a few ingredients.
When they’ve finished cooking, you should roll them in a mixture of sugar and ground cinnamon – sugar and spice make everything nice!
They’re best served with a thick, rich chocolate sauce to complete the rich beauty of the dish.
3. Deep-Fried S’mores
Graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows – yep, that’s a s’more. But wait. What if we covered it in batter and deep-fried it? It turns out that, if timed well, what you get is a transcendently delicious mixture of melted chocolate and chewy marshmallow.
Sound good? Of course it does. This recipe uses a mixture of milk and dark chocolate, but you can use whatever kind of chocolate you like. In fact, since the recipe calls for chocolate bars, you can take things even further than that.
Want peanuts and caramel in your deep-fried s’more? Why not use a Snickers? The possibilities are endless.
4. Classic Deep-Fried Funnel Cakes
You might recognize funnel cakes as a classic carnival treat. They get their name from the fact that the batter is poured through a funnel into the hot oil, the funnel swirling around to create a unique pattern.
This means that all funnel cakes have their own appearance, and no two look the same. One of the great things about funnel cakes is that there are so many different ways to serve them.
You can have them for breakfast with fruit or turn them into a dessert by adding powdered sugar, chocolate sauce, etc. You can even add spices like cinnamon or nutmeg to the batter for additional flavor.
5. Leche Frita
If your Spanish isn’t too rusty, you might already know that “leche frita” literally means “fried milk”. You might be wondering how you can deep-fry a liquid, and it’s a fair question, but you can!
You’ll do it by mixing it with several other ingredients and heating it until it’s thickened up a lot. You’ll then chill it in the refrigerator until it’s solid before you fry it.
When it comes to flavor, you won’t be surprised to hear that this is a sweet treat, crispy on the outside and, like churros, rolled in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon as a final touch before serving.
Make a large batch because you and whoever you’re eating them with will definitely want more of them.
6. Deep-Fried Root Beer Floats
Yes, really. You probably didn’t have too much trouble understanding how it was possible to fry milk, but this is taking things to a new level.
You might already have guessed that this isn’t literally a fried root beer float, but it does include all those great flavors. If we were going to be a bit more accurate (and a lot more boring) about this, it might be called a root beer funnel cake.
This means that it uses root beer in the batter and root beer syrup brushed on after frying. Top it with vanilla ice cream and – why not? – some more root beer syrup to finish off your deep-fried root beer float. A strange dish, but a delicious one.
7. Deep-Fried Coca-Cola Balls
This is another dish that’s a favorite at fairs and carnivals and is also another dish that takes on the challenge of frying a liquid, though it actually uses vanilla coke rather than the standard version for extra flavor.
In this recipe, the coke is the star ingredient in a batter which is deep-fried to result in the finished product. With that distinctive coke taste alongside vanilla and powdered sugar, these are sure to be a hit with whoever you serve them to.
8. Deep-Fried Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
If you had some chocolate chip cookie dough, what would you do with it? Bake it into cookies. Fair enough, but this recipe is here to let you know that that’s not your only option – you could deep-fry it instead!
If you do, you’ll get smooth, round balls that are crispy and crunchy on the outside but wonderfully soft on the inside – the best of crispy and doughy. The chocolate chips melt in a predictably wonderful way to add a great burst of chocolate flavor when you bite into the balls.
It’s also easy to adapt this dessert in all kinds of ways, by seasoning the batter, adding pieces of your favorite candy bars, etc. Go nuts!
9. Rothenburg Scheeballen
Rothenburg is a city in Bavaria, a region in the South of Germany. “Schneeballen” literally means “snowballs”, so the dessert is called a Rothenburg snowball.
It’s made of numerous strips of shortcrust pastry wrapped into a loose ball, deep-fried, and dusted with sugar. Delicious enough, but there are endless variations for those who want their schneeballen coated in coconut, cinnamon, marzipan, almonds etc.
They were originally only eaten on special occasions but are now popular at all times of year throughout Bavaria.
10. Kluai Kaek (Thai Deep-Fried Bananas)
These deep-fried bananas are a popular street food snack in Thailand and there are several similar dishes to be found around Southeast Asia.
The authentic recipe calls specifically for Thai bananas, which are smaller and firmer than the kind usually sold in Western supermarkets.
However, you can use regular bananas too, as long as you remember that they’re softer and so can withstand less frying.
Whichever bananas you use, the batter should contain shredded coconut, sesame seeds, sugar, and salt for a wonderful flavor.
Once they’re done, you can eat them as they are or serve them with ice cream and your choice of sweet sauces.
11. Cronuts
For those unaware, a cronut is a hybrid of a donut and a croissant (or should that be a croissant and a donut?) They look like donuts but are made from the same kind of pastry used to make croissants.
You’ll be pleased to hear that these are easier to make than croissants are, too!
This recipe keeps the flavors simple with a glaze of milk, sugar, and vanilla and while that’s delicious enough, you can glaze them with anything you like, so feel free to get your Krispy Kreme on.
12. Kokis
One of the more obscure items on this list in the West, kokis are a kind of Sri Lankan treat that are sometimes also called rosette cookies. The batter has thick coconut milk as its base and is seasoned with turmeric.
That’s all the seasoning in the traditional version but if you want to break with tradition, you could try rolling them in sugar after they’ve finished frying or dipping them in chocolate sauce like churros.
13. Baursak (Kazakh Fried Dough)
The number of dishes of fried dough from so many different countries on this list really speak to its universal popularity, and Kazakhstan is no exception to the rule.
Their version is called baursak and one thing that distinguishes it from a Western donut is that the dough contains milk, which makes the resulting food soft and fluffy.
As they do in Kazakhstan, you can serve them with sugar, butter, jam, or honey, either as a dessert or as a snack to be eaten with tea.
14. Diples
Diples are a Greek kind of deep-fried pastry that take their name from the Greek word for “fold”, meaning that the dough is folded.
Orange and lemon juice is part of the pastries themselves but there’s also a delicious syrup of honey, lemon, cinnamon, and walnuts to add an even larger explosion of flavor.
Delightfully crunchy and exquisitely flavored, these are an ideal dessert after a wonderful Greek meal.
15. Deep-Fried Chocolate Covered Strawberries
This is a list of deep-fried desserts and even innocent strawberries are not going to escape without being coated in chocolate, batter, and cooked in oil until they promise not to be healthy anymore.
The batter in question is a delightfully fluffy, pancake style batter and the chocolate that’s hiding just beneath bursts into your mouth with each bite, making these a wonderfully decadent treat.
Serve them with chocolate sauce if there’s not enough chocolate for you already, or with cream if there is. We know that you just thought about serving it with both, and that’s totally okay, because we would too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I Need A Deep Fat Fryer To Deep-Fry Things?
While a deep fat fryer is probably the easiest way of deep-frying something, the fact is that for the vast majority of people, buying one isn’t worth the expense, trouble, or space it’d take up in their kitchen.
Luckily, you don’t need one to deep-fry food because you can use the pots and pans you already have to do it perfectly well. Many recipes that involve deep-frying (on this list and elsewhere) will mention the type of vessel that they recommend you to use.
Is Deep-Frying Safe?
While deep-frying is not much more dangerous than regular cooking, and millions of meals are deep-fried every day without any problems, it does pay to be careful because deep-frying does come with some risks that other cooking methods don’t.
Since you’ll be using a large amount of hot oil, take care to avoid burns. Don’t leave hot oil anywhere it could spill easily, and keep all handles and power cords well away from children.
Watch the oil at all times to make sure it’s not getting too hot, which in extreme cases could cause a fire. In the event of an oil fire, never ever try to put it out with water, as this will only make things much worse, very quickly.
If it’s a small, manageable fire, you might be able to put it out by quickly putting the lid on the fryer and taking it off the heat, or by pouring baking soda or salt on it to smother it. If these fail, call the fire department.
Is Deep-Fried Food Healthy?
You might have been hoping that the answer to this question was somehow going to be yes, but sadly, it isn’t. Deep-fried foods are, unsurprisingly, high in fat, and that goes double for most of the fatty, sugary desserts on this list.
That being said, that’s the reason that they taste so good and as long as you enjoy them sparingly as part of a balanced diet, eating the occasional ball of deep-fried chocolate chip cookie dough won’t cause you any problems.
Final Thoughts
This list is a mouthwatering lineup of some of the most delicious deep-fried desserts the world has to offer, so the only question you need to answer now is which one do you want to try first? It might not be an easy choice, but it’s sure to be a fun one!
15 Greatest Deep-Fried Desserts
We’ve selected 15 of the most delicious deep-fried dessert recipes from around the world so that you can take your dessert game to a whole new level!
Ingredients
Directions
- Pick a recipe from the list above
- Click the recipe name and visit the website
- Collect the ingredients and cook the food
- Enjoy – don’t forget to leave a review
Recipe Video
Through this blog I hope to help others learn the basics and more intricate details of cooking. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to cook a meal, only to realize you are missing one ingredient from your list. This is why I love to write articles chatting readers through some great substitutes that can be used in an emergency.
I hope you will find this blog useful, and that it will help you to develop your culinary skills, to help you cook up a storm!
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Lirigzon Gashi
Tuesday 16th of July 2024
Lirigzon Gashi