Street Snack · Fried Dough Balls

Bofrot

📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Bukky658 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Bofrot is essentially the same snack Nigerians call puff-puff, and in Accra it is also known by its Ga name, toogbei.

A soft, sweetened yeast dough spiced with nutmeg is scooped by hand straight into hot oil, where it puffs into golden, craggy-surfaced balls with a fluffy interior. Vendors fry it in big woks along Ghana's roadsides and markets, scooping the hot balls into paper bags for an on-the-go snack or breakfast side.

Why it's made this way: The hand-scooped, no-mold shaping is what gives bofrot its irregular, craggy shape, and the same nutmeg-spiced dough recipe traveled with traders along the West African coast, resurfacing under different names in Nigeria, Cameroon, and beyond.