Easy Elephant Ears

Valentine's week. The bakery's fourth Valentine's season and the most successful: thirty-five cake orders, up from twenty-eight. Heart conchas selling at double the rate. Sweet tamales de dulce debuting — Sofia sold sixty at the farmers' market at three dollars each, which is a premium but the customers paid it because the tamales are pink and filled with strawberry cream cheese and love is worth three dollars when it comes wrapped in corn husk.

Luis gave me roses. Grocery store. Plastic wrap. Twenty-nine years. The tradition that does not improve and does not need to because perfection was achieved on iteration one and every iteration since is a confirmation of the original theorem: this man loves me. The proof is in the plastic wrap.

Alejandro's death anniversary passed this week — February 10, one year. I lit a candle. I made caldo de res. I didn't cross the bridge. The grief for Alejandro is different from the grief for Rosa — Rosa's grief is an ocean, vast and bottomless and permanent. Alejandro's grief is a river, narrower, moving, carrying things downstream. The river carries the memory of a man who built a house and drank too much and loved his wife so thoroughly that when she died he followed, and the following was not weakness but devotion, and the devotion was the truest thing about him.

Sofia and I sat in the bakery after closing on Valentine's Day and counted the money. Six hundred and twelve dollars in one day. A record. A bakery in the Lower Valley of El Paso, named for a seamstress from Anapra, generated six hundred and twelve dollars on Valentine's Day selling heart-shaped conchas and pink tamales. I said: "Rosa would not believe this." Sofia said: "Rosa would believe it. She just wouldn't believe the pink tamales." She is right. The pink tamales are where Rosa's tradition ends and Sofia's begins, and the boundary between them is where the bakery lives, and the living is the business.

I made churros for the bakery on Valentine's Day — churros with chocolate ganache dipping sauce, a special that Sofia priced at five dollars for two churros and one sauce, which I said was expensive and she said was "premium pricing for a premium experience" and she was right because we sold forty orders and the profit margin was thirty-one percent and Sofia is thirteen and she knows the phrase "profit margin" and the profit margin is thirty-one percent and I have stopped fighting the future because the future has a clipboard and a key and is wearing a black apron with her name in pink.

The churros sold forty orders that Valentine’s Day — Sofia priced them at five dollars and I said it was too much and she was right and I was wrong, which is becoming a pattern I am learning to live with. When I got home that night, still smelling of frying oil and chocolate ganache, I wanted to make something for Luis — not heart-shaped, not premium-priced, just warm dough and cinnamon sugar and thirty seconds of peace. Elephant ears are what I made: the same spirit as a churro, the same honesty, the kind of food that asks nothing of you except to eat it while it’s hot.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup warm milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil, for frying (about 2 inches deep)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (for coating)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (for coating)

Instructions

Make the dough. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add warm milk and melted butter and stir until a soft dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 1–2 minutes until smooth. Divide into 8 equal balls.
Roll thin. On a floured surface, roll each dough ball into a rough circle or oval about 1/8 inch thick — the thinner the better for crispiness. They don’t need to be perfect; irregular edges are part of the charm.
Heat the oil. Pour vegetable oil into a heavy-bottomed skillet or Dutch oven to a depth of about 2 inches. Heat over medium-high heat to 375°F. If you don’t have a thermometer, drop a small scrap of dough in — it should sizzle and rise immediately.
Fry until golden. Working one at a time, carefully lay a dough round into the hot oil. Fry for 1–2 minutes per side, using tongs to flip, until both sides are deep golden brown and the surface blisters slightly. Transfer to a paper towel–lined plate to drain for 30 seconds.
Coat in cinnamon sugar. Combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon in a shallow dish. While each elephant ear is still hot, press both sides into the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat evenly. Serve immediately.
Optional chocolate dipping sauce. Warm 1/2 cup heavy cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Pour over 3 oz chopped dark chocolate and let sit 2 minutes, then stir smooth. Serve alongside for dipping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Easy Elephant Ears — The Fried Dough That Funded a Valentine’s Record