Budget-Friendly Mandazi: 4 Ingredients, 2kg Flour
Here's our easy affordable homemade delicious 4 ingredient mandazi recipe with 2 kilograms of flour. It's simple and easy to make. This soft Kenyan mandazi recipe is suitable for meal prepping, large groups, and commercial purposes. A beginner following through this tutorial will easily make this mandazi recipe successfully.
Equipment
- 1 Mixing Bowl
- 2 tbsps
- 1 perforated spoon for turning
- 1 frying pan
- 1 cutter (You can improvise and work with a glass or cup, or cut the dough with a bread knife to form suitable mandazi shapes)
Ingredients
- 2 kg all-purpose flour
- 1 & ½ cups sugar (Or as preferred)
- 6 tbsps - heaped baking powder
- 6 tbsps Cooking oil (Plus cooking oil for deep frying the mandazi)
- (Room temperature water)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, (or large kitchen washbasin) begin by combining all the dry ingredients until evenly mixed. *I haven’t added salt to this mandazi recipe because I wanted to remain faithful to what I promised in calling this a 4 ingredient mandazi recipe. Also, the mandazi are delicious even without salt. Because salt enhances the flavor of the mandazi, if you are adding salt, add a full teaspoon of salt to the mandazi.
- Make a well in the center of these ingredients and add 6 tablespoons of cooking oil. The cooking oil will act as shortening, helping with making the mandazi soft too.Evenly mix the oil into the dry ingredients using a wooden spoon.
- Begin adding the cold room temperature water, a little at a time, mixing each time with your hands, until you get to the consistency of a soft sticky dough. A soft dough is key to ensuring your mandazi will be soft.(I often work with 6 to 7 cups of water. Because different brands of flour hydrate at different levels, you will find you’re working with adifferent amount of water each time especially if you use different brands of all-purpose flour. First add 3 cups of water and mix. Add the remaining water, a cup at a time up to the fifth cup, mixing each time. Add the last part of the water a little at a time- half a cup each time, until you get to a soft sticky dough) Now mix until all the ingredients are well mixed and incorporated.
- Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel, transfer to a place in your kitchen where your dough will not be disturbed and allow it to rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour. An overnight rest is also highly encouraged if you want to make the dough the night before.
- Once the dough has had time to relax and rest, it will usually be very soft and smooth as you handle it.Transfer it to a floured surface and knead for about 5minutes. If the dough is too big for you to knead, you can also divide it into 2 to 4 parts and separately knead each part for 5 minutes.
- After kneading, divide the dough into 8 parts to manage the dough better. Cover the parts of dough you’re not yet working on with a clean kitchen towel to keep them soft and supple.Next, roll out the first part of the dough on your floured surface to a thickness of about 1 centimeter or slightly more. If you roll them thinner than a cm, they will be too hard and dry once you've fried them.Cut into preferred mandazi shapes with a bread knife. Alternatively, you could use a cookie cutter or a suitable glass or tumbler to form desired shapes. Work on the second part too to ensure you have enough pieces to fry before you begin frying the mandazi pieces.(Because the mandazis are many, you can also enlist the help of someone else to help with the rolling of the dough and cutting.)
- Meanwhile, in a suitable pan for deep frying, add your cooking oil. It should be slightly less than half the pan. As your cooking oil is heating, begin to work on the third piece to keep a steady flow of the mandazi pieces that are ready to fry because once you begin frying, the process will be fast.
- Let the oil get hot, not smoking hot.If the oil is too hot, your mandazi pieces will burn before they get to cook on the inside. If the cooking oil is too warm, the mandazi pieces will tend to absorb some of the cooking oil. When the mandazi are too oily, you will definitely not enjoy your mandazi.I will usually know my oil is just hot enough by frying one of the mandazi pieces first. (You can cut a small piece of mandazi from a bigger piece and fry it first. Once it has fried to a beautiful golden color on both sides, I will know we’re good to go with frying the rest.
- Depending on the size of your pan, begin to gently slide in the mandazi from the edge, so the oil doesn’t splash and burn you or someone else.As they slide in and float to the surface, immediately turn them over once you’ve slid in enough pieces. This is to ensure most if not all, don’t form big air bubbles on the inside.
- Fry the mandazi to a nice golden color on the underside.Turn them over and fry on the opposite side until nicely golden too.As you are frying the mandazi, keep working on rolling and cutting more pieces to keep the flow of mandazi pieces coming for frying.
- Once ready, transfer to a suitable tray or bowl lined with paper towels to drain out any extra cooking oil.Fry the remaining pieces as explained above.
- Once your mandazi has cooled sufficiently enjoy with a cup of your favorite beverage. Serve or sell too once they've cooled sufficiently if they are for sell.Mandazi will also freeze well. If you are meal prepping and you want to batch-cook the mandazi, fry them, let them cool completely then store in suitable Ziplock bags or freezer-friendly storage containers. Transfer to the freezer.When you need to use them, remove from the freezer the night before. They’ll defrost well and be ready to eat the next day. If you’re in a hurry and you have a microwave, the quick defrost function on your microwave will also defrost them fast. Check to be sure your quick defrost function doesn’t cause them to defrost and become too hot. They’ll dry once they cool. Keep checking to be certain the function will work just right with the mandazi pieces you’re defrosting.Enhance your hospitality for the glory of God.
