Tangle Britches Cookies are a delightful treat with a rich heritage said to be in Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. This recipe, is slightly adapted from Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking by Yorkraft Inc. (1960), and showcases one classic approach to making these intricate, fried cookies. With ingredients like butter, eggs, sugar, and a hint of delicious Ceylon cinnamon, the dough is rolled thin, cut into rectangles, and fried until crispy. The unique method of cutting and frying can give a kind of tangled appearance, which is probably why these cookies are affectionately named “Tangle Britches.” Dust them with powdered sugar or drizzle with molasses for a sweet, nostalgic treat.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound butter
- 6 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon Ceylon cinnamon
- 5 cup flour
Directions
- Cream together the butter and sugar.
- Add the eggs beating well.
- Sift in the cinnamon and enough flour to make a stiff dough.
- Roll out the dough very thin on a floured board to about 1/8 inch thick.
- Cut into rectangular pieces 3 inches by 5 inches.
- Make 5 cuts lengthwise in the dough 1/2 inch apart and 4 1/2 inches long, so that the rectangle remains in one piece.
- Fry in hot deep fat (360f) for 2 minutes or until they bob up to the top of the hot grease.
- When dropping them into the fryer, pick up the 1st, 3rd and 5th strips and pull them upward.
- Let the 2nd, 4th and 6th sag downward so that in frying they get all fahuudelt (tangled) or as the dutch say, all through each other.
- Dust with powdered sugar or dribble molasses over them and eat hot.
