Among the delicacies at this year’s CNE: deep-fried butter

Among the delicacies at this year’s CNE: deep-fried butter

Deep-fried butter at this year's San Diego Fair (Image: It's Holly)

For those of us who prefer to waddle rather than race between the attractions at the CNE, food vendor Vicky Skinkle is offering perhaps the fattiest of all fried foods: deep-fried butter. These are Timbit-size balls of butter, covered in funnel cake batter, fried in oil, topped with either raspberry, chocolate, caramel or vanilla sauce and dusted with icing sugar. A four-pack is $5, but to avoid any cardiac emergencies at the midway, we recommend sharing.

Skinkle, who operates the Sweet Treats concession stand, already beloved for selling chocolate-covered bacon, didn’t invent the concept. Deep-fried butter was thought up in Texas (where else?), by Abel Gonzales Jr., who unveiled the dish at last September’s state fair. Gonzales, who also pioneered deep-fried Coke, won a trophy for his invention; the concoction is now popular at fairgrounds across the U.S.

Skinkle recently noted to the Star, “In Canada, people are not as open to everything being deep-fried,” the way they are in the States, but we have no doubt Torontonians will gobble up these butterballs. Deep-fried Mars bars have been popular for a long time, and another CNE vendor, Mac and Cheesery, is offering up deep-fried versions of its eponymous treat.

Grossed out? Don’t be. There are worse foods that we could import from the States—maybe next Ex.

Deep-fried butter latest CNE treat [Toronto Star]