Entrepreneurs Heroes - Bruce Thompson

Receipt for Gufongy 

aka Cape Verdean Banana Donuts

Week 1 Entrepreneur's Journal

I love to cook food from my country, Cape Verde and I want to share my receipts with the world.
This week I begun taking some cases that will help me share my receipts and to get to know some people out their who love Cape Verdian food.
I will be creating a web site this week and will keep you posed on how it goes.
If you have any favorite recipes, please send them to me.

Receipt for the week - Gufongy (aka Cape Verdean Banana Donuts)

We recently had an international day at our church, and when I asked my family what I should make; they cried, they begged, they demanded that I made gufongy.  My husband is from Canada and he calls them my Cape Verdean banana donuts. As a child, this was always my favorite treat, so it is going to be my first posting. I hope you enjoy it as much as my family and I do.
If your family is like mine, you may want to make a big batch of dough that you roll into fingers (that's the shape of the gufongy) and freeze. Then you can take out a handful of fingers and cook just the quantity you need.
Over the years, I have made various variations, including without bananas and substituting bananas with blueberries, cherries, grated carrots, and dates. I found that generally a one-to-one substitution works great.

Ingredients

1 cup of water
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 cup of cornmeal
2 tablespoon shortening
1 cup mashed over ripe bananas
3 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of baking soda
vegetable oil for frying

Directions

In small sauce pan:
Add sugar and salt to water and heat while stiring until smooth.

In a large bowl:
Add cornmeal and then add enough sugar water to make paste.
Mix in shortening and mashed bananas by hand until smooth.
Gradually stire in 1 cup of flour
Followed by the baking soda
Then add the balance of the four and stire until consistency of bread dough.
Cover and let set for 30 minutes to cool and rise slightly

Once cooled take a small piece of dough and roll into small finger on a floured surface - about 3/4 of inch in diameter and 3 to 4 inches long - should make 4 to 5 dozen gufongy fingers.

In frying pan:
Pour in enough oil to more than over gufongy.
Heat at medium.
Add raw gufongy, but make sure that they have room to move.
Fry until golden, turn once to make sure they cook on both sides.  If golden on outside, but doughie inside, turn stove down a bit and wait 15 minutes.

Place on paper towels to cool, then serve
Store in sealed containers after cooled or they will dry out.

Try and let me know how it goes.

Love
Maria Tucker