Papanași

Papanași is a Romanian and Moldovan traditional fried or boiled pastry made from fresh-cheese (brânza proaspătă or urdă) dough. It is usually served topped with cream (smântână) and fruit confit.

Papanași

Papanași, with cherries, at a restaurant, in Sinaia
Type	Pastry
Course	Main, Dessert
Place of origin	Romania, Moldova
Main ingredients	soft cheese (ca. 60-70%), wheat flour (ca. 30%), sugar; cream and jam for topping
Media: Papanași

Papanași with sour cherries and powdered sugar

Preparation

Papanași^[1] is doughnut-shaped with the doughnut hole on top.^[2][3] The dough is made with a soft cheese such as urdă, substitutes include ricotta and cottage cheese.^[4] Papanași are served covered in crème fraîche or heavy cream or sour cream, and topped with sour cherries or jam or preserves.^[5]

Papanași dough can be fried, as a "doughnut", or boiled, as a dumpling, like large gnocchi.^[6][7]

Ingredients: semolina or wheat flour, urdă or ricotta or cottage cheese, rum or lemon zest or orange zest, preserves or cherries, sour cream or crème fraîche, vanilla, eggs, sugar, salt, butter, baking soda.^[4][3][2]

Etymology

The word papanași may come from^{[citation needed]} the Latin papa or pappa, which means 'food for children'.^[8]

In Hungarian Papanași is called Túrófánk Kalaposan (translates to "Túrófánk à la hat"). Normal túrófánk is popular in the Romanian region of Transylvania.^[9]