Romanian Papanasi Recipe - My Gorgeous Recipes (2024)

Published: Sep 4, 2020 · Modified: Sep 25, 2023 by Daniela Apostol · This post may contain affiliate links · 10 Comments

Romanian Papanasi Recipe with sour cream and jam, or fried no-yeast cheese doughnuts, a dessert that tastes like heaven, and we are so proud of it. It only takes a few basic ingredients to put it together, but be sure that everybody will fall in love with them.

What are papanasi?

Papanasi (read papanashi) are a traditional Romanian dessert made of cow's cheese, eggs, bicarb of sofa and flour, and flavoured with lemon zest. They are similar to a fried donut that is topped with a donut ball, and served with lots of sour cream and jam.

You will find papanasi in any Romanian restaurant, and anywhere else where traditional Romanian food is served.As a nation, we love cheese, and cow's cheese is my favourite - I even have my own recipe on how to make cow's cheese or farmer's cheese at home. From appetizers, to mains or desserts, we like adding cheese in lots and lots of dishes.

Now, there are two types of papanasi, the fried ones, and boiled papanasi. Of course, the boiled ones are healthier, but you will agree with me that fried are tastier. Right?

As for jam, you can use any kind, I absolutely love my Blackberry Jam and Damson Jam, worth giving them a try!

Ingredients needed

• cow's cheese - or feta cheese
• egg
• plain flour
• bicarbonate of soda
• lemon
• granulated sugar
• vegetable oil -to fry
• sour cream - to serve
• jam - to serve

Step-by-step photos and instructions to make Romanian papanasi

If you can't find cow's cheese, feta cheese is a very good substitute.

• Crumble or grate the cheese
• Add the egg, bicarbonate of soda, lemon zest, sugar and flour, and mix to get a dough.

NOTE! At this stage the dough will be pretty sticky. Leave to rest for 15-20 minutes, and the dough will be soft, and very easy to work with.

• Transfer to the work surface and divide it into 4 balls. Use flour to dust if the dough is still sticky.
• Each ball will be divided into 2, one ball will be bigger. From the bigger ball, we will shape a round donut with a hole in the middle, where the second one will be the shape of a ball (see photo below).
• Heat up the oil, and deep fry until light brown.
• Repeat with the rest of the donuts.
• Once cooled, serve with plenty of sour cream and jam

Traditional Romanian meal

If you ever visit Romania, you'll be welcomed with lots of delicious food and lots of plum brandy, which is our traditional drink. Red wine is another favourite of ours.

We absolutely love food, and every important holiday is a good excuse to cook a proper feast with lots of dishes, both sweet and savoury. So, how about we put together a proper Romanian meal?

We can start with some amazing appetizers like aubergine salad, or some chicken liver pate. We can't possibly not taste the delicious "Ciorba Radauteana", or chicken soup with sour cream and garlic.

As a main meal, our sarmale, or meat and rice rolls in cabbage (or grape leaves) have no rival. They find their way on the table more often than you think.

As for desserts, apart from papanasi, we can enjoy some "Salam de biscuiti" or chocolate salami, or a good old cremeschnitte(Cremsnit). Or, why not some no-yeast beignets(Gogosi).

A good savoury snack are these amazing cheese crackers (saratele). And the list is endless.

If you’ve tried my ROMANIAN PAPANASIor any other recipe on the blog then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let me know how you got on in the comments below, I love hearing from you! You can alsoFOLLOW MEonFACEBOOK, andPINTERESTto see more delicious food and what I’m getting up to.