"Sopapillas" with Sweet Butter and Tart Lemon Pulp

Tonight we had a mexican inspired meal, and I thought it would be fun to try my hand at GF sopapillas. You'll notice that I put that in quotations in my title. That's because they didn't turn out like a conventional sopapilla. They puffed a little, but not as much as one would expect.

They still tasted awesome!!! I actually really recommend trying these out! Let me know if yours puff up better!

"Sopapillas" with Sweet Butter and Tart Lemon Pulp

Zest from one large Lemon

Juice and pulp from the same lemon

1/2 cup Sugar

Splash of Water

1 tsp. Unflavored Gelatin

1 Tbsp Water

1/2 Cup of your preferred GF flour mix

1/2 tsp. Xanthan Gum

3/4 tsp. Baking Powder

Pinch of Salt

1/4 Tbsp. Butter

1/3 Cup Water

Oil for frying

For the Tart Lemon Pulp, add the first 4 ingredients to a sauce pan. Taste it and make sure you like the amount of sugar in it...you can always add more to make it sweeter. Bring it to a simmer and reduce it down by 1/4 or so. In the mean time, bloom the gelatin in a small cup with the remaining water. Once the simmering lemon is reduced a bit, add the bloomed gelatin. Whisk it a bit, and pour it into a bowl and chill in the refrigerator until cool. It should be thick, but still kind of liquid.

For the sopapillas, mix all of your dry ingredients together. Crumble in your butter like you would if you were making a pie crust. Add your water, a bit a time and begin to knead the dough together. It should be a tiny bit dry, but if you feel it is too dry, you can add a bit more water. It will all depend on your weather outside.

Begin heating the oil on the stove and bring it up to 400 f. Be oh so careful not to burn yourself! Pat the dough flat (1/2" thick) and cut into squares-whatever size you want. Fry for about 30 seconds on each side. Using a metal slotted spoon, remove from hot oil and drain on some paper towels.

Melt the sweet butter over the sopapillas and drizzle the cooled lemon pulp over them. It would also be attractive to sift some powdered sugar over them when plating them up.

cooks note-If you want your lemon pulp to be thicker, you can reduce it more or you can add more gelatin; thinner, you can omit the gelatin and stop once you have reduced by 1/4. If you are vegan and don't use gelatin, just squeeze more lemons and add more sugar and reduce it a lot more. It will become syrupy and the natural pectin in it will help to thicken it. You are also welcome to use store bought pectin as well.