Mandazi – East African Doughnuts

Mandazi: East African doughnuts with a slightly crunchy exterior and light fluffy interior. Sweet but not too sweet. Perfect for pairing with tea or coffee. This is one treat you’ll want to make over and over again.

We are on a journey which we are enjoying so much. It is the journey of discovering various African foods, trying them out in our kitchen then bringing them to you. Reason why we have so far shared this recipe for Pilau (Rice Pilaf) and this recipe for Kachumbari (tomato onion salad). We have so much to tell you in this post so buckle up your seatbelt and let’s go.

First, if you are in the United States, we want to tell you about an app called Instacart. It is literally saving our life right now. Instacart lets you shop from home! Yes, you heard us right. You shop from home then the food gets delivered right to your doorstep.

So, no more long walks with our entourage of kids at the grocery store for us. At least we should safe grocery shopping for when we really just want to visit a store and for when we go to an African or Asian store for groceries that are not commonly found elsewhere.

We really enjoy grocery shopping but when you factor in dressing kids to take along, answering endless questions from a curious 8-year-old and 6-year-old. then having to deal with a temperamental toddler and a newborn… then our love for grocery shopping flies right out the window!

So Instacart it is. This is not an ad but we totally love and recommend this service which you can simply get by downloading the Instacart app on your phone.

Why am we telling you this? Because for an adventurous cook like us who has to shop for new/strange ingredients all the time, this service saves us tons of time that would have been spent digging through shelves to find the right ingredient. All we need to do is search for what we want to buy on the app, order and it will be brought to our doorstep.

With that, we have been able to quickly get lots of ingredients which we will be bringing to you in new exciting recipes in the days ahead. For today, let us tell you about our new spice BFF: cardamom!

Cardamom is the truth! When you have a spice that gives life to both savory and sweet dishes, then you know you have a winner. Cardamom makes these doughnuts really special. The cardamom in this Mandazi gives it great flavor and also gives it an authentic Kenyan taste.

Then add cinnamon to the cardamom and you have doughnuts that are BOOM-KAPAW! Yes, the doughnuts combine both cinnamon and cardamom and the flavor is out of this world. We just want to eat and eat and sniff and sniff because… cardamom oh our! That thing smells worth making again.

Take it from a girl whose tummy is slightly bloated because she overfed herself with Mandazi: these East African doughnuts are to die for!

Our girls share the same sentiments. They ate and ate and though we wanted to stop them, we let them eat because we said to myself, once in a while let the kids indulge.

So you really want to make this Mandazi. It is slightly crunchy on the outside, fluffy and airy on the inside, slightly sweet, perfect for pairing with tea or coffee.

When we make and enjoy treats like this, we feel like we have truly lived. If we are going to load up on carbs, let it be something special and this Mandazi is phenomenal just like our African Twisted Doughnuts, Puff Puff, or this Cameroonian Gateau.

Mandazi is the treat to take to potlucks or to make for guests or to use to satisfy your spur-of-the-moment-we-need-a-doughnut-craving! or to make for breakfast.

Also, if there’s an essential oil that combines cinnamon and cardamom, we are totally buying it!

What is Mandazi?

Mandazi is known as the East African Doughnut. It is a deep-fried dough snack popular in East African counties like Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. It is also known as Swahili Coconut Doughnuts. Other names for Mandazi include Dabo, Dahir, Mahamri, Mamri or Maandazi.

The main ingredients for making Mandazi include flour, sugar, coconut milk, a raising agent (baking powder or baking soda), egg and cardamom for flavor. Sometimes coconut flakes are added to make it extra coconutty.

• Yield: 50 doughnuts
• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 30 minutes
• Total: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons oil we used corn oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water

Method

1. Place lukewarm water in a bowl then add the yeast to it. Add sugar, egg, milk and stir well. Add the flour, cinnamon, cardamom and salt then stir to form a dough.
2. Place the dough onto a floured board and knead, sprinkling flour as needed (avoid over sprinkling flour as this will yield a hard dough). Knead until the dough comes together. It’s okay if it is still slightly sticky.
3. Flour a board then form dough into a board and place on it. Roll out into a rectangle that is 1/4 inch thick. Cut the rolled out dough into squares then cut the squares across into triangles.
4. Let the cut-out dough rest for 20 minutes.
5. Pour oil in a pan up to 3 or 4 inches. Heat up oil then fry the doughnuts for about 2 minutes on each side.
6. Serve warm with tea or coffee.