Rosettes

Rosettes are one of those delectable Scandanavian deep fat fried treats, good enough, taken together with lefse, to make up for that other Norwegian delicacy--lutefisk. I suppose you could call them a kind of cookie, but they're not quite cookies. I remember some of my friend's mothers making them for Christmas when I was growing up in Minnesota and I loved them. I looked forward to Christmas just so I could have some fattimann and rosettes.

I no longer have friends whose mothers make them, so I have to make them myself. I picked up a rosette iron when I was down in Petersburg, AK--or Little Norway--and I've been making them for Christmas ever since.

Yesterday I made my yearly batch of rosettes, and here's how I did it.

• Whisk 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup whole milk (Don't substitute skim or 2%!) in a small but deep bowl.
  
  
• Add 1 1/2 cups sifted (or at least fluffed up) flour. Mix until the lumps are gone.
  
  
• Add 2 tablespoons melted butter and mix that in well.
  
  
• Refrigerate the batter for 30 minutes.
  
  
• Begin heating oil to 350 F (180 C) in pan or deep fat fryer. This year I used a deep fat fryer, but I've used just a large saucepan and candy thermometer, too, and that's not much more difficult.
  
  
• Line a cookie sheet with a couple of layer of paper towel or brown paper and set it beside the fryer or sauce pan to use for draining the rosettes.
  
  
• When the chilling time is up, remove the batter and heat the rosette iron (see photo of mine) in the oil for a minute. Remove and allow the excess oil to drip back into the heated oil.
  
  
• Dip the iron into the batter just far enough for the batter to reach the top of the iron, but not go over it.
  
  
• Carefully transfer the iron from the batter to the hot oil. Fry the rosette in the oil just until the rosette is firm and lightly brown, about 1 minute.
  
  
• Remove iron from oil and gently shake rosette off the iron onto the paper towel. If the rosette sticks to the iron, take a fork and gently remove it. This recipe makes about 3 dozen rosettes.
  
  
• Sprinkle with icing sugar (confectioner's) and serve.
  
  
• These freeze well. If you freeze them, then don't sprinkle the sugar over them. Just place them in an airtight plastic freezer container with paper towel between the layers. Sprinkle the sugar on them when you remove them from the freezer. They will thaw in just a few minutes.

These are really so easy to do. They look like you fussed, but you haven't. My iron does two at a time (see the photo), but I unscrew the iron form from one side and only fry one rosette at a time. That's what I can handle easily.