It's the pause that always gets us. You're at a carnival with the family, and someone introduces the topic of the funnel cake, as in who wants one. And then there's a pause. In the distance, the wind blows. Some kids laugh on the carousel. FM Rock -- maybe Motley Crue or Iron Maiden? -- blares from a ride. And then finally, someone, with bravery, says they're on board. They want funnel cake.
The reason behind the universal pause? Funnel cake is at the farthest reaches on the fair-food spectrum. If you're eating it, you're just admitting to yourself, well, you're at this amusing, once-a-year event, you might as well go all out. You might as well go to the culinary edge of the Land of Dessertania, where it is just you and calories and deliciousness. And at the culinary edge of the Land of Dessertania sits fried dough. Covered in powdered sugar, of course. The funnel cake.
Funnel cake, meet the churro.
You didn't think it could happen. You didn't dream. That stick of walk-and-snack sugariness, also a carnival and theme park staple, has now been combined with the funnel cake. A confectionery confluence. The result: The Jumbo Mexican Funnel Cake, a tangle of churro-ish dough and whipped cream and fruit. We'd almost call it a nest of churro. A soft churro pillow?
There's plenty of time to think up what this dessert hybrid looks most like when you're eating one at the OC Super Fair. But. There's not a lot of time left for the fair. The month-long funnel-cake-fueled extravaganza puts away the fryers after Sunday, August 9th, its final day for 2009.
