Here in Toronto, we have a large and diverse Greek diaspora, boasting of a Greek population that resettled here from all over Greece.

The first time I had Svinghi, they were made and given to me by Kathy Hourdas, a lady from Kalymnos, one of the islands in the Dodecanese.

A few years ago, I my first visit to the Dodecanese Islands and I was delighted to see that this is a specialty on many of these islands.

Svinghi are essentially fried choux pastry (think churros meet loukoumades). A choux pastry consists of butter, flour, eggs, sugar, salt, water and they can be baked or fried (we’re going with the latter).

Spoonfuls of choux are dropped in hot oil, fried ’til golden and coated in a think honey/syrup. This recipe makes a decent sized platter. Watch them disappear.

Svinghi

(serves 6-8)

4 Tbsp. Butter

1 cups of water

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

3 large eggs

Syrup

2 cups sugar

1 cup water

2 strips of lemon or orange peel

1 small cinnamon stick

1/2 cup honey

vegetable oil for frying

1. For the syrup: add water, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon peel in to a small pot and bring to a boil. Then lower to a simmer and boil for another 6 minutes. Take off the heat and add the honey, stir in and allow to cool (warm). Remove, cinnamon.
2. To a medium bowl, add flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and mix with a fork. To make the dough (choux), add the water, sugar and butter into a medium-sized pot and over medium heat melt while stirring. Now add the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon. Keep stirring until the dough no longer sticks to sides of the pot. Remove from the heat and allow 5-6 minutes to cool.
3. Crack the eggs in a bowl and mix with a fork to blend. Now slowly add your eggs into the dough while mixing.
4. Add some vegetable oil into your pot – enough oil to come 3-4 inches up the pot. You want your oil to reach a heat of about 360F.
5. When your oil is hot, use a teaspoon to scoop some dough and then place in the hot oil. Fill your pot with some more teaspoons of dough but be careful not to overcrowd the pot as the Svinghi expand.
6. Fry until golden turning occasionally with a slotted spoon and remove and reserve on paper-lined platter. Repeat until all your dough is fried.
7. Transfer Svinghi to a platter, drizzle lots of syrup over them,  sprinkle with icing sugar and cinnamon and serve.

NOTE ON SYRUP: you can use honey instead of making syru