Recipe for Bugnes

Bugnes ingredients:

1kg of flour
6eggs
250g of sugar
250g of butter
salt
1glass of orange blossoms
leaven for 1kg of flour
1 cup of warm milk
oil

Preparation of the Bugnes:

Prepare the dough the day before.
In a bowl, dissolve the leaven in the warm milk.
In a bowl, incorporate the flour, make a fountain, pour in the leaven.
Mix with the fingers to obtain a liquid dough in the center.
Let rest a quarter of an hour.
Knead the butter with the sugar, put aside.
Take back the bowl, knead by adding first in the middle, the eggs, the flour little by little and the orange blossom water, and finally the salt.
Work by hand.
When the dough becomes soft, add the butter/sugar mixture and work until it is necessary to flour the fingers.
Gather into a ball and cover with a damp cloth.
Let the dough rise one night near a heat source, fireplace or oven (be careful, the dough will double in volume, provide a large dish).
The next day, take small amounts of dough from the ball and spread with a roller or a bottle, for this purpose sprinkle the table with a thin layer of flour.
Spread in thin layers.
With a knife or a serrated wheel, cut out rectangles.
Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan, dip the doughnuts in it.
The oil must be boiling, but not smoking.
The doughnuts will dip and rise to the surface, turn them and take them out with a skimmer when they are golden.
Place them on a dish and sprinkle them with caster sugar.
In the old days, the bugnes or doughnuts were cooked in a large black pan.
They were placed in large laundry baskets lined with white towels.
It was necessary to make enough to eat them from Christmas to the first of January.
During New Year's Eve, the bugnes were offered with a small glass of Cartagena to the visitors, who gave a small coin to the children, for the piggy bank.
It was the gift of "Père Janvier".