How To Make Puffy Akara Balls

How to make Puffy akara balls like Rubynnia.I love the way beans cakes (akara) sold by the road side taste and looks. The akaras have puffy feel, look like puff puff from afar and are usually compact. I discovered that the technique used to achieve this is in actually
working on the ground beans (pureed beans).

I’m going to show you how I eventually got my akara the way I’ve always wanted. I’ll start with the pureed beans (with pepper + onion included).

STEP 1: STIRRING TIME
Using a wooden spoon, stir your pureed bean mixture. Some do use mortar and pestle but a wooden spoon is okay for me. The aim is to introduce air into the mixture so as to achieve the puffiness we desired. When yeast is added to dough, it causes the dough to raise thus trapping air needed for bread/pastry to have the puffy texture; it’s the same thing we are doing to the mixture except that this is a manual effort.

Keep doing it till you see bubbles in the mixture, which shows that air is being trapped in. Continue stirring till the mixture gets fluffy/light so to speak. At the beginning, the mixture is usually thick due to little water added but as you stir, it becomes lighter; you can do this for 20mins or longer as desired.

STEP 2: CONDIMENTS ADDITION
Get your ingredients to be included in the mixture ready. I added chopped pepper and onion (extra spicing). I didn’t include salt at the beginning because doing so would spoilt the result of what we want-the puffy texture. It is advised that salt be included just when it’s time for frying.

 3: FRYING
Place the frying pan of hot on fire. With a scooping spoon or any other convenient spoon; scoop a small amount of the beans mixture into the hot oil. Please ensure the oil isn’t too hot else it will fry quicker than expected. Continue till no more space is available.

STEP 4: ADJUSTMENT & TURNING
Due to the stirring technique done at the beginning, each beans cake doesn’t stick to the surrounding cakes. Each maintains its own space and boundary. Though some might stick due to congestion but I use a fork to separate them. When I’m frying, I prefer using a fork to separate and turn whatever I’m frying because it makes frying easy and neat.

STEP 5: SCOOPING
I prefer whatever I fry to always have a crisp brown look; anything lighter hasn’t properly cooked. The beans cake is now done and ready to be removed from the pan.

6: COOLING & DRAINING
Beans cakes placed in paper towel to drain excess oil.

STEP 7: READY TO EAT!
Beans cake nicely served. Doesn’t it look like puff puff?

1. How to make Akara balls at home 
2.  akara without eggs, onions and crayfish 
3. How to make Akara with beans skin and serve with moringa 
4.  with Banana milk custard 
5. Brown Akara balls with gingered Akamu 
6. The right Scoop that gives round akara balls