French cruller
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| Alternative names | Twister |
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| Type | Pastry/Doughnut |
| Variations | French cruller |
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A traditional cruller (or twister) is a fried pastry often made from a rectangle of dough, with a cut made in the middle that allows it to be pulled over and through itself producing twists in the sides of the pastry. Crullers have been described as resembling "a small, braided torpedo" and having been "a staple of the New England diet since the Pilgrims' day". Some other cruller styles are made of a denser dough somewhat like that of a cake doughnut formed in a small loaf or stick shape, but not always twisted. Crullers may be topped with plain powdered sugar; powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon; or icing. However, a "French cruller" is a fluted, ring-shaped doughnut made from choux pastry with a light airy texture. The French cruller in German is called a Spritzkuchen.
The name comes from early 19th century Dutch kruller, from krullen "to curl". In Northern Germany they are known as "Hirschhörner" (deer horns) based on one of the leavening agents baker's ammonia, which is called "Hirschhornsalz" in German. (The other leavening agent is carbonate of potash.) They are traditionally baked on New Year's Eve as a family project with the kids doing the labor intensive shaping and the grown ups handling the deep frying. In Danish they are known as "Klejner" and in Swedish as "Klenäter", both names deriving from Low German. In Scandinavia crullers are common at Christmas. In the US various shapes of pastries are known as Crullers. Some forms of those Crullers are what is traditionally eaten in Germany and some other European countries on Shrove Tuesday, to use up fat before Lent. Crullers are believed to have been introduced to the New World by Sebastian Croll.
They were referenced in The Wizard of Oz when Aunt Em offered them to Hunk, Hickory, and Zeke after scolding them for being "three shiftless farmhands". The twisted shape of the crullers might have been a metaphor for tornadoes as the same scene references other metaphors which influenced Dorothy's subsequent dream.
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