Puff Puff

A pan-West African fritter found across the region — known as puff puff in Nigeria and Cameroon, and as bofrot or togbei in Ghana, among other local names. Unlike the bean-based Sahelian fritters (the Hausa kosai), puff puff is made from wheat flour and yeast. Its origins are not firmly documented; one account links it to the spread of European wheat baking through Lagos and other coastal ports in the late 19th century, though this is uncertain. It belongs to a wider family of African fried-dough snacks that includes East and Southern Africa's mandazi, which is often enriched with coconut and egg.

Wheat-and-yeast fritter that travelled with European baking through the 19th-century Lagos ports. The fist-squeeze technique — batter pushed through a closed fist into 170°C oil — is what gives the teardrop shape; too stiff a batter and it fries dense.

Golf-ball-sized rounds of yeasted dough, deep-fried until mahogany outside and pale yellow inside, served warm in a paper cone with sugar dusted on top or a side of chili-sugar mix. Crisp shell, soft chewy crumb with visible holes from the rise. Eaten by hand at parties between savory courses; should squeak slightly between the teeth.

The batter must be wet — closer to thick pancake batter than dough, so the fingers can scoop a portion and squeeze it through the fist into the oil (the fist-squeeze technique is what gives puff puff its rounded teardrop shape). Too stiff and it fries dense; too loose and it spreads. Oil at 170–175°C: hotter and the outside browns before the yeast pockets cook through, leaving raw centers.