Corn Dog Batter Recipe

Fair Recipes: Classic Corn Dogs, Deep-Fried Snickers

If you can't make it to the St. Charles County Fair to sample the culinary delights and find yourself craving a corn dog or a plateful of funnel cake, relax. Fair food is easy to make. Here’s a few of my favorite recipes to try for fun, including a low-fat dog-on-a-stick recipe courtesy of Pillsbury that you can serve all summer long.

See story: Decadent Delights: Food on the County Fair Midway

Corn Dogs Classic Midway

Heat oil in a deep fryer to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and pour in the egg, buttermilk, and baking soda. Mix until everything is smooth and well blended.

Pat the hot dogs dry with paper towels. Insert wooden sticks into the ends. Dip the hot dogs in the batter one at a time, shaking off the excess. Deep-fry a few at a time in the hot oil until they are as brown as you like them. Drain on paper towels. Serve with a yellow salad mustard. Makes 10 corn dogs.

The following is a friendlier, lower fat alternative to the deep-fried corn dog from Pillsbury’s test kitchens.

Deep-Fried Snickers

Push each Snickers bar onto a skewer or popsicle stick and freeze for at least 2 hours or overnight. Whisk the flour, milk and egg together to make a pancake like batter). Heat 4 to 6 inches of vegetable oil in a deep pot until to 350 degrees. 

Hold the Snickers by the skewer and dip into the batter, turning to coat. Carefully place the Snickers in the hot oil (skewers and all); fry, turning as needed, until browned and crisp 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Use tongs to remove each bar by the stick; drain on paper towels or a rack and serve warm. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. Serves 4.

Cresent Dog on a Stick

Waffle Maker-Smart Planet CDM-1 Corn Dog Maker | best waffle irons

This may sound like an odd review, but we have been looking for something like this device for a long time. Hot dogs are a great kid-friendly dinner, and surprisingly low in calories and fat if you get chicken dogs. Corn dogs are tons of fun, but frying them is not only not good for you, it makes dinner heavy and greasy. We tried many times to make oven-corn-dogs, but the batter always fell off. It looked very unappetizing. This corn dog device is perfect. We mixed the batter according to the recipe, put the corn dogs (along with the batter), and a few minutes later, perfect corn dogs on a stick. The outside is crisp (with a nice texture), and the inside fluffy. As close as you can get to frying without actually frying.

It could be improved. First, while hot dogs do come in various sizes, these molds are too short for almost any hot dog. We ended up cutting off the ends of all of them, and then making a corn dog composed of 3 end pieces. It did such a nice job with cooking the bread that you couldn’t tell which one wasn’t a single dog. Second, it would be nice if the plates were removeable for easier cleaning. I’m still giving this 5 stars because I had an awesome dinner with it.

Overall, glad I bought it, and I would buy it again. Single-use devices are not usually my favorite, but corn dogs need this type of device, and everyone needs homemade corn dogs.

*** Updated 5 months later ***

Wow .... Still Loving the corn dog maker. Same remarks as above, it is not perfect, but everyone in the family looks forward to the corn dog night. We use it about once every 2 weeks. We are still buying standard hot dogs, cut the ends, then make a corn dog cutting off pieces. Another commentator suggested purchasing a long hot dogs and cut them in half. I like that idea, but not sure if they make long chicken hot-dogs. Go ahead and buy this great device, get some spicy honey mustard, and enjoy!

We just got this and within minutes had to test it out. It worked perfectly and is so quick and easy to use! I personally didn’t care for the first batter recipe (haven’t tried the second one yet). It was good so long as there was hot dog in with every bite, but at the end where I had just dough left, it’s not tasty on it’s own, but that’s no big deal, it’s easy enough to change the recipe or use a different recipe all together. I made the first batch without even using the sticks. This will thrill my daughter who loves corn dogs, but isn’t a fan of the stick getting in her way of eating it. I’m so excited to try other things with it too. I have so many ideas of what can be made with this fun gadget. I had some crescent dough in the fridge and wrapped a piece around a cheese stick and cooked that up- it turned out perfectly cooked, a bit bland it needed some seasoning or a different type of dough, but you can see the possibilities. You can take any dough or batter and add something to it. Pancake/Sausage dogs, stuffed pizza sticks, put sliced apples in a sweet batter and make a kind of apple fritter on a stick. I have a beer bread recipe, and I think that would be great coating for cheese stuffed jalapenos. You could even just use cake, muffin or pancake batter and make some interesting shaped breakfast or dessert items. I have not tried this yet, but I have an idea for S’mores on a stick, use a sweet batter (like pancake, or maybe someone has an idea how to make batter that tastes like graham crackers) place several mini marshmallows on the stick, place it on the batter in the corn dog maker, sprinkle with chocolate chips, and top off with batter close and let cook. Yum. I plan to use this for the coming school year to make homemade grab and go breakfast items (like sausage on a stick). I make a bunch up, freeze em, and my husband and daughter can just pop them in the microwave and head off to school. I can make them cheaper and healthier than the store bought ones.

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