HOW TO PREPARE BUFF LOAF (GHANAIAN)

     Buff loaf,one of my favorite African pastry. I vividly remember my mum making it behind the kitchen using our indigenous food cooker;the coal pot and a huge locally made frying pan filled with hot oil. those days were a lot fun to me. There was never a day that passed by without me having two buff loaves in my lunch box when I was in nursery and kindergarten.
    The reason for choosing the buff loaf is because it is simple to prepare, a delicious pastry which can serve as an appetizer for a main course and as mentioned above,one of my favorite. Buff loaf, I will say is a pastry prepared by Ghanaian women but has gradually spread to other African countries on the western side such as Nigeria,Togo, Cote D'ivore, Benin amongst others. The people of Ghana nicknamed it 'buffroat' and Nigerians call it 'puff puff'.
    As stated earlier ,the preparation is simple. I will provide the required ingredients and its preparation and with the help of the video provided above, you will be able to pick up the steps of preparation quicker.
    The ingredients needed are: three cups of flour, one cup of sugar preferably brown, three seven grams(7g) sachets of dry yeast, one and a half  teaspoon of ground nutmeg, a table spoon of butter, a teaspoon of salt and one cup of lukewarm water depending on how you want your buff loaf to be, either heavy or light. To begin, get a deep ball and pour your three cups of flour into it,add your sugar, dry yeast, ground nutmeg, butter and salt,and begin to stir or mix the butter into the mixture. Make sure the butter mixes with the other ingredients well and gradually add your lukewarm water to the mixer. As mentioned, the water must be added slowly because you do not want to lose the value of the yeast in your mixture. If you think the mixture is too light for you, you can add a little amount of flour.
     Now that the mixture is done, it is advisable to leave the mixture covered with a napkin for about twenty to thirty minutes. This is to make ingredients like sugar and salt dissolve completely in the mixture. You must note that the mixture is suppose to be sticky. Now we heat our oil, and the oil must be very hot and the method of frying our 'bufroat' is the deep frying method. When your oil is hot,you will scoop our mixture in your desired quantity into the hot oil. You ether use your hand or a small ladle to scoop the mixture into oil.
       Finally,leave 'bufroats' on fire till they turn golden brown. Take them from the fire into a sieve or a colander to drain oil on it  then your self prepared delicious buff loaf are ready to be consumed. Buff loaf can be taken with cornflour or wheat flour porridge. These are also African dishes which are taken as breakfast and it is highly common in the western part of Africa. It can also be taken with roasted groundnut, fruit juices and some non-alcoholic drinks like Coca Cola and Sprite.

        Special  acknowledgment  goes to AdomHomeFoods' beautiful documentary on buff loaf. I hope you enjoy the video and you can check out other African food prepared by AdomHomeFoods on YouTube....ENJOY!!