Nothings
Two eggs; add all the flour they will take, roll very. thin and fry in hot lard; sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixed, when done.
A three-line recipe for fried pastry that assumes you already know what the dough should feel like. The hinge is thinness: rolled thick, these are tough and greasy; rolled to the point of translucency, they blister into brittle sheets in a few seconds.
- "All the flour they will take"Two large eggs will absorb roughly 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 cups of flour before the dough stops taking more. Work toward a stiff, smooth, non-sticky dough closer to noodle dough than pie dough, then let it rest 20-30 minutes so it will roll thin without springing back. The original gives no salt; a pinch would not be out of place.
- How thin is "very thin"Rolled until nearly translucent, about 1/16 inch or thinner. A pasta roller does this faster than a pin. Cut into rectangles or diamonds, and slit the centers if you want them to curl as they fry.
- Fat and temperatureAn inch to an inch and a half of lard, hot enough that a scrap sizzles the moment it goes in; on a thermometer, roughly 365-375F. Cooler and they soak up fat; hotter and they scorch before they blister. A neutral oil works, though lard gives the flavor the recipe was written around.
- TimingSeconds, not minutes — 20 to 40 seconds a side, turning once when the surface blisters and goes pale gold. Fry only a few at a time so the fat does not drop out of range.
- Sugar and cinnamonToss them while still hot and barely drained, or the coating slides off. About 1/2 cup granulated or superfine sugar to 1 teaspoon cinnamon covers a full batch.
- Yield and keepingTwo eggs make roughly three to four dozen small pieces. They stay crisp a day or two in a tin, but lose their snap in humidity and do not benefit from refrigeration.
"Nothings" is the plain-English name for the fried scrap-dough pastry that turns up across Pennsylvania German and wider northern European baking — sisters to Norwegian fattigmann, German Hasenöhrchen, and the various "knee patches" and "cobbler's bits" rolled over the knee or a stocking-covered board. The name is generally read as a joke about the ingredient list: eggs, flour, hot fat, sugar, and nothing else, no leavening, no milk, no butter. That economy explains its place in a supper chapter rather than among the desserts, since it was the sort of thing assembled quickly for an evening table from what was already in the kitchen. It also explains why the recipe gives no flour quantity: a cook who made these often judged the dough by hand, and eggs before standardized grading varied enough that a fixed measure would have been useless anyway.