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As a kid, the Friday before Easter meant three things: Trying and failing not to talk from noon to 3 p.m. &mdash; the hours, we were taught, of Jesus suffering on the cross; fasting and abstaining from meat; having a supper of homemade bread fresh from mom&rsquo;s oven followed by a sugar-sprinkled fried dough desert with a name I don&rsquo;t know how to spell.
				For the sake of writing about it, we settled on &ldquo;kreppe.&rdquo; If you know the correct spelling, please enlighten. I have a family interested in getting it right after all these decades.
				These golden brown puffs not only lacked a spelling, they lacked an actual recipe. When I grew old enough to help make the Good Friday meal, I learned mom just mixed a big batch of the white bread recipe from her Betty Crocker cook book, divvying it to make mostly bread loaves but always reserving some to roll out, slice into squares, and fry into kreppe.
				Bread for supper sounds like prison food, but four things made it a treasured meal: 1) mom only made it once a year, so, instant treat; 2) she usually served it still warm from the oven, so mmmmmmmm!; 3) I got into the habit of interpreting the Catholic mandate of fasting on Good Friday to mean eat nothing except that bread meal, so, hunger! 4) the bread was followed by the bowls of kreppe, also still usually warm from the frying pan.
				For a while after getting my own apartment I would regularly bake my own white bread, but kreppe remained strictly a Good Friday recipe only cooked in mom&rsquo;s kitchen. Last week, for the first time in my life I fried kreppe in our house, taking most of it up to the West Hazleton Homestead where Jay baked the bread. 
				I made the kreppe in the morning, initially planning one loaf of bread and one batch of fried dough, but opted for all kreppe, figuring some could go to the office both to treat co-workers and get feedback. MT doled out samples to our fellow ink-stained wretches and got the following comments.
				&ldquo;This means another half hour on the treadmill,&rdquo; cop reporter Ed Lewis alleged, &ldquo;but it will be worth it.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;It was delicious,&rdquo; columnist Bill O&rsquo;Boyle opined, &ldquo;Not too sweet, but enough to satisfy your sweet tooth.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s wonderful,&rdquo; editor Robert DuPuis inserted into the story, &ldquo;Light and airy, too. &ldquo;
				Page designer Toni Pennello laid it out this way: &ldquo;Fabulous. I didn&rsquo;t expect it to be hollow.&rdquo;
				And multi-purpose but primarily court reporter Patrick Kernan testified &ldquo;It reminds me of pizza fritta, like something you&rsquo;d have at a carnival.&rdquo;
				Well, as a lifelong Catholic, I&rsquo;m not envisioning a new tradition of Good Friday carnivals anytime soon, but this humble dessert has always made the somber day of fasting worth it, so just imagine how it could add to more festive occasions.
				If you already bake, you likely have a favorite white-bread recipe, so just use that. Otherwise, I include the one I used for consideration. I&rsquo;d recommend halving it if you just want some kreppe (half the dough made about 60 pieces for me), or making the full batch and baking half as a loaf of bread and frying the other half. It tastes great hours after frying, but is best when still pretty fresh from the pan.
				Dobru Chut!
				Kreppe (Fried dough)
				White Bread dough (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)
				5&#190; cups flour
				1 package active dry yeast
				1&#188; cups milk
				2 tablespoons sugar
				1 tablespoon shortening, margarine or butter
				1 teaspoon salt
				Combine 2&#189; cups of flour and the yeast in a large mixing bowl.
				In a saucepan, heat and stir the milk, sugar, shortening/butter and salt until warm (about 120&#176;) and shortening/butter mostly melts. Add to the flour mixture.
				Beat with an electric mixer on low for 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high for 3 minutes.
				Stir in as much remaining flour as you can (If using dough hooks on the mixer, you may continue to beat on low to mix the flour, and probably reduce kneading time).
				Knead until you have a moderately stiff dough that&rsquo;s smooth and elastic, 6 to 8 minutes. Shape into a ball. Lightly grease a bowl, drop the dough in, turn it once so top surface is greased, cover and let rise in a warm place until double, about 45 minutes
				Punch dough down, turn out onto lightly floured surface, cut into two equal amounts,cover and let rest 10 minutes.
				For bread: Roll out one of the dough balls into a 12-by 8 rectangle and roll up tightly, starting at narrow edge. Seal ends and place into an 8 by 4 by 2 bread loaf pan. Alternatively, just shape into a loaf and place in pan. Cover and let rise till double (30-40 minutes). Bake at 375&#176; for about 40 minutes. For a softer crust, brush some butter on the bread top after removing from pan.
				For kreppe: roll out into a rectangle to about 1/8 inch thickness or so. Slice into squares. Don&rsquo;t worry about the shapes, it&rsquo;s all good as long as most are roughly the same size.
				Heat some vegetable oil in a large skillet or pan. You can deep fry the dough, but it works fine and uses less oil if you heat about a 1/4 inch or so of oil. Place squares of dough into the hot oil carefully, making sure they don&rsquo;t overlap, and fry until the underside is golden brown (you should just start to see a hint of brown on the edges). Flip and fry the other side. Remove with slotted spoon and place in a bowl. Add more dough to the oil and repeat until it&rsquo;s all fried. Sprinkle sugar on each batch of kreppe while still warm, and toss them a bit to get sugar on both sides.
				Some will puff up more than others, and if you are using a straight-sided pan (recommended) you can actually prop the puffier ones against the pan sides to get the edges into the oil so they brown more evenly, but that&rsquo;s more for looks than for taste.

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You don’t need to know how to spell it it love it