Lángos in Air Fryer

This is again "fake it till you make it", but not to be famous of look good in anyone's eyes. It is a trial to find the best way to make a good lángos in the air fryer.

Lángos in Air Fryer.jpg

For those of you, who don't know what lángos is, here it is:

Lángos (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈlaːŋɡoʃ]) is a typical Hungarian food. Nowadays it is a deep fried flatbread, but in the past it was made of the last bits of the bread dough and baked at the front of a brick or clay oven, to be served hot as the breakfast of the bread-baking day.

I love it as everyone else in Romania, Hungary and other European countries, but it's a killer and very unhealthy as it's deep fried, plus topped with sour cream, ham and sprinkled with cheese, you can imagine the calories you take in. This is why I am allowing myself one, or max two a year (but 2 is already a luxury for me) and try to find a healthier substitute now that I have the air fryer.

The goal is to get a recipe for one lángos and bring it to perfection. The recipe I'm posting today is made by me, I mean I put together what I thought would be good. One thing is new here, the use of baking powder instead of yeast as it's easier for the stomach.

So let's see what I did.

Ingredients:

200g all purpose flour,
60g unsalted, low fat cheese,
1/2 teaspoon baking powder,
1/2 teaspoon salt,
little oil,
2 tbs tomato sauce,
water as much as it is needed.

I placed the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and added as much water as it needed, till I got the dough I wanted.

It is a sticky dough, no worries, that's why I have the oil ready, so I can shape it, without sticking to my hands. Many recipes mention to sprinkle the dough with oil, but I didn't do that, for me, it was enough the oil I used to shape the dough.

To be on the safe side, I used baking paper, and a trick I'm using to help the paper stay put and not roll up. You just have to crumple the paper, then straighten it out again and it stays put. When I'm making a cake, I even water the paper, to be softer and it's a perfect solution.

I divided the dough in two and shaped it on the paper. The most important detail here to pay attention to is not the form, but the thickness. You don't want a really thin dough that hardens during the baking, but a thick dough either.

This is the first one. I baked it for 15 minutes on 200C, flipping it halfway. It didn't turn out as golden brown as the original or the ones you see on the internet, I suppose due to lack of oil added, but it's ok, I'm not doing it for the external aspect.

Here's the second one. Looks a bit better I suppose.

This is not the usual topping, but I wanted to make it healthier, so I chose homemade tomato sauce instead of sour cream and garlic and added low fat, grated fresh cheese.

Is this the best version? It was really good, but probably not the best. I chose "Pizza" mode, but maybe it's better to choose "Bake" or "Air Frying". I need to try those out as well and see what's the best. So there's more to come.

By the way, I got two pieces out of it.

If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides: