Picarones, Peruvian squash doughnuts

Ingredients

• 500 g of sweet potatoes
• 500 g of pumpkin
• 500 g of wheat flour
• 3 tablespoons of dry active yeast
• 1 teaspoon of anise seeds
• 3 cloves of allspice
• 1 cinnamon stick
• One small glass of anise liqueur
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• oil for deep frying
• 500 g of raw cane sugar (chancaca)
• 5 cloves of allspice
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 strip of orange zest
• 2 Scotch bonnet peppers from Jamaica
• 4 cups of water

Boil the peeled and chopped sweet potatoes and squash in plenty of water with cinnamon, cloves, and anise, all enclosed in a piece of fabric. Reserve half a cup of the cooking water, drain, and mash finely.

Mix the yeast and sugar together in the warm cooking water, and let it stand for 20 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the purée, yeast, eggs, anise liqueur, and salt. Then, gradually add the flour until a smooth, elastic dough forms that doesn’t stick to your fingers. Cover and let it rise for about 1 hour.

While that is simmering, boil the crushed chancaca with water and spices until it reaches a syrup-like consistency, then strain it.

Heat a large amount of oil. Using a hand dipped in salted water, take small portions of dough, form them into rings by pressing them with your finger, and then fry them in the oil.

Drain the fruit and serve a few on each plate, drizzled with chancaca syrup.