Chocolate With Francois: Pets De Nonne

This month’s cooking with the Choc-a-holics group: Chocolate With Francois we had an excellent opportunity to create little fried donuts.  The name “Pets De Nonne” literally means “nun’s fart”.  That really doesn’t sound very good to me but ignore the name, take a bite and all skepticism melts away.  The pick was by Maggie of “The Other Side of 50”.  Great pick Maggie!

I don’t like to fry.  I don’t have a deep fryer and I am afraid of hot oil.  The result of my fears was a very ugly looking fried lump of very dark (some might say black) dough.  I thought…”who the heck is going to eat these”. 

The only major change to the recipe, other than not deep frying,  was my use of Schokinag Drinking Chocolate instead of cocoa.

After cooking, I sprinkled on the confectioners sugar.  That made them look a little better. Then I approached my  resident guinea pig taste tester, Ted, and he said “Sure! I’ll try one”.   He bit in and mumbled something. I said “Pardon?  – is it ok?”  He said “Yeah. It’s good. I just can’t tell what it is”. 

At that point I didn’t declare “It’s a Nuns Fart!”  Since on a previous day I had baked a carob-honey sponge for diarrhea and he was certain to begin wondering where my baking was going.  Ted came in the kitchen, hovered over the brown-black lumps of fried dough and said “I want another”.   I pointed out a smaller one and he said “too small”.  He went for a bigger one, sprinkled on the sugar and said “It’s a good thing we have the gym or you’d be looking at Two Ton Tony!”  I guess if he gained an exorbitant amount of weight, he’d change his name to Tony.

My Pets De Nonne are not pretty as they flattened out because I didn’t deep fry. In fact I initially had the oil too hot (suppose to be 350F).  But the taste….the taste IS feather light and they are sinfully delicious.  A nun would NEVER indulge in such an extravagance.  Or…would she?

Wonderful recipe by Francois Payard from his book “Chocolate Epiphany”.

Joanne