Easy Homemade Canadian Moose Ears

We (Jennifer & Marya) are co-writing this post today.
Last summer, we took  a road trip out east together with our mom to the East Coast. While in Quebec City, we stopped at the delicious Beaver Tail restaurant, and enjoyed quite a treat! As Canadians, I think that we’re all used to treating ourselves to this iconic Canadian food while out skating on the Rideau Canal, spending the day at Canada’s Wonderland, or, like we did, while on a cross-Canada vacation, but here’s some good news: it’s REALLY EASY to make a dessert just like Beaver Tails at home! However, the BeaverTails corporation wanted us to remind you that these are homemade treats, not BeaverTails TM products, so we asked a lot of you what you thought, and most of you thought that the name Moose Ears both fit this dish nicely and reflected the very Canadian Nature of this cuisine. Moose Ears it is. 

After a little Googling and Pinterest-ing, we found that there were two ways to go about making them. The easiest is to use pizza dough (either pre-made or homemade), but we settled on this recipe  from Allrecipes.com. Even though we both love to substitute ingredients, we followed this recipe almost exactly.  It even called for a combination of whole-wheat and white flour, so that makes these healthy, right?! 

Being at our mom’s for a family Easter get-together was a great time to try it out and have lots of taste-testers! We combined the  ingredients in my mom’s 25-year old dough pail, though it would probably work just as well in a KitchenAid, a breadmaker, or by hand.

After leaving it to rise for a few hours, we rolled out egg-shaped chunks of dough to about 1/8 inch thick, leaving the to rest under a damp tea towel while the oil was being prepared for frying.

Initially, we were planning on using the deep fryer to fry these outside on the deck, but while packing up the fryer to bring to mom’s for the weekend, someone (cough, not me, cough) dropped it on the driveway and it wasn’t so much working when we tried heating the oil. So. Plan B. We poured the oil into a large stock pan until it was about 4 inches deep. I clipped my mom’s meat thermometre to the side of the pan so that we’d know when the oil was in the right temperature range for frying. We also opened up ALL of the windows in the house and had fans blowing from the stove to the nearest windows so that the house wouldn’t stink like deep frying. I think we succeeded on that front.

Before placing the dough in the oil, I stretched it out so that it was about 1/8″ thick again, after the rising. They ended up being about 6-7″ long, about 4″ wide. When the oil reaches 350-375 F / 175 -190 C, carefully place the dough, 1 portion at a time, into the pot – don’t fry more than 3 at a time, or your oil will cool too much.

I found that 2-3 minutes on the first side, flip, and about 2 minutes on the second side, and the Moose Ears were a beautiful golden. We let rest them for a minute on paper towel.

Place the cooked dough in a container of prepared cinnamon & sugar – toss a bit on top with a spoon to cover the whole thing. Shake excess sugar mixture off – and voila! Your very own homemade Beaver Tails Moose Ears!  

 Everyone enjoyed them – kids and adults alike! What a fun treat this was! And don’t worry about not having enough to feed a crowd – this recipe makes about this many Moose Ears! Head over here for the very easy recipe that we used! 

You’ll notice that the middle plate holds ‘naked’ Moose Ears’ – because there were so many that I (Jenn) took some home to get creative with! Stay tuned for a Maple-Glazed Candied-Bacon Moose Ears Recipe!! Cheers! 

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Marya R

I live in Bowmanville, and am a mom to four young boys - it can get a little loud in my house. I am a Christian, a part-time French teacher, a piano teacher and former homeschooler. I love finding the best deals, which will come in handy when our boys become hungry teenagers! We just moved to a house with more outdoor space, and I'm still getting used to life in the country (a walk around the block is a lot longer here!).

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