Indy’s Frying Butter

Every State fair has a niche. From cows carved out of butter or prize winning animals, there is always something to try and bring more people in. The Indiana  state fair not only has the worlds largest and second largest pigs at this year’s fair but they also have Deep Fried Butter!  Whether you go for the rides, the animal shows, to buy a new tractor, or to find out what in the world Fried Butter is, you’ll find something memorable and fun.

I can remember when the big fried treat at the fair was just funnel-cakes. Now a days though, these seem like the retro treat. Fried Twinkies made it big a while ago and opened the door for many other newcomers.  Any candy bar is now happy dipped in a sweet batter and tossed in the fryers for fair goers’ pleasure.

Even for my senior prom I made fried Twinkies for a pre-prom dinner party I hosted at my house for a bunch of my friends. It wasn’t the best thing I have ever had, but it had its appeal.

I have once had a fried Oreo!  Again, it was coated in sweet batter and pretty darn good.  The chocolate cookie was still crisp and the filling had turned to a creamy liquid and it was all wrapped up in a sweet, soft pillow of dough.

So, I have a background in at least trying these overwhelming desserts, but you only live once and why not.

This year though, at the Indiana state fair, one cart challenged themselves to take fried treats one step farther. Each year a stand owned by Carousel Foods Inc. makes a new fried item to sell and help bring people into the fair. This year they are frying butter.

Megan and Ben (Brian’s sister and brother-in-law) had tried last year’s feature of Fried Pepsi! They explained that it was a sweet doughnut-like batter that had been made with a lot of Pepsi. They were a bit hesitant when they sent us to this year’s fair with Fried Butter in our future, but I couldn’t wait to see how they pulled it off.

How does one even come up with such an idea? The man working the fryer said his young apprentice had an inspiration one evening out with his friends.  He would not go into further details. The man did share more thoroughly how they make this creation happen. While he was frying us an order he explained “it’s just butter whipped with brown sugar and cinnamon!” The butter is scooped into balls and frozen, then they are dipped in the same sweet batter that the candy-bars and Twinkies go into and are fried up.

He handed over two large balls of golden goodness. We took a seat in the shade under a tree and I carefully bit into the top of it (remember it is full of hot liquid butter). I was able not to make a mess of myself. After a few bites I was able to get a grip for what I was eating.

Upon breaking through the crisp outer crust leading to the tell-tale pillowy dough I found, cradled in the center, was the liquid butter I had been searching for.  Don’t judge me, but it was good!  The perfect bite has enough doughnuty shell to absorb the liquid butter.  This combination just rich enough without becoming ridiculous!

They really pulled it off!

In my family we never shy away from butter. I think it is just the frying of it that seems so wrong but it just felt right. I thought the only thing that could have made it more appetizing was if it were small bite size balls I could have just popped in my mouth. Then the burst of liquid butter would be more controllable. In the large ball foam it was too obvious to me that I was just eating butter.

Gimmicks work. We went to the fair in search of Fried Butter, we found it, and we liked it. More importantly it is something we will never forget. We saw the big pigs, little pigs, petted a lot of animals, and ate fried butter.  It seemd like the perfect and classic trip to the state fair to me.