This famous recipe is a tribute to all daddies in the world, to celebrate Father’s Day: the Saint Joseph’s Day zeppole! Find this and many more recipes on the Giallozafferano App in English http://itunes.apple.com/app/giallozafferano-recipes/id384387249?mt=8
***
Hi GialloZafferano viewers and welcome to our kitchen. Today, on Father’s day, we’re thinking about all Italian papas, and so we’ll make them a very well-known dessert, Saint Joseph’s Day zeppole, tempting fried treats filled with custard and garnished with sour cherries in syrup. Decadent, but very good, what can I say? Let’s see what we’ll need to make them:
For the dough for 15 zeppole:
• 1 cup (250 ml) of water
• 5 tbsp (70 g) of butter / 1 1/5 cups (150 g) of flour
• 1/5 cup (40 g) of sugar / 3 medium eggs
• A pinch of salt / the grated zest of 1 lemon For the custard:
• 1 cup (250 ml) of milk / 3 egg yolks
• the grated zest of ½ lemon / ¼ cup (30 g) of flour
• 1/3 cup (60 g) of sugar
• ½ vanilla pod
For garnishing:
• maraschino cherries
• Powdered sugar / peanut oil
Well, let’s see how to make the zeppole:
Begin by making the custard: put the egg yolks and the sugar in a bowl, mix together well, then add the flour and enough milk to blend everything. Put the remaining milk in a saucepan and bring almost to a boil: cut the vanilla pod, scrape out the seeds and add the seeds and pod to the milk along with the lemon zest. Turn off the heat and, after 10 minutes of cooling, pour the milk little by little through a fine sieve into the yolk, sugar and flour mixture; return everything to a low heat and leave it to thicken, then remove from the heat and pour the custard into a wide, shallow container to cool, cover the custard with cling film and keep in the fridge to cool quickly.
In this saucepan I’m making the zeppole dough: first add the butter and water, once the water begins to simmer and the butter is melted, turn off the heat and add all of the flour at one time, stirring quickly. Mix it well until it forms a ball… here we are. Now turn the heat back on… and let the dough dry for a few minutes; you’ll notice a white film forming on the bottom of the pan, this means the dough is dry enough, so turn off the heat, turn out the dough into a bowl and leave it to cool.
Once the dough has cooled, add the sugar and the grated lemon zest, then the eggs one at a time, stirring constantly; make sure to incorporate each egg completely before adding the next. Continue until you’ve added all the eggs and then you’re ready for the next step.
Put the dough in a pastry bag with a star-shaped tip, then cut some parchment paper into squares with 3-inch (8 cm) sides; since we’ll be forming the zeppole onto each of these squares, grease the pan with butter first, then lay down the squares so they won’t slide around while you pipe out the dough. Now form circles with a diameter of about 2 inches (5 cm) and then pipe a ring onto the edge so as to form a little bowl, in this way: start in the centre of the square… and then form the top ring, like this.
And now it’s time to fry them: pick up a paper square, and drop it into the oil, which should be around 350°F (180°C); in a large pan you can fry about 3 zeppole at a time… don’t add more than that or the temperature will drop too quickly… as you can see, you can take out the paper more or less instantly… perhaps using a pair of tongs like this, to keep your fingers safe… and fry until golden brown.
Once the zeppole are fried, all that’s left is to fill them with the custard, well cooled, using a pastry bag. As you can see, they are hollow inside, so fill with the custard… and then top each one with a maraschino cherry or sour cherry in syrup — whichever you like best or whichever you can find. The final touch is a sprinkling of vanilla powdered sugar… and our saint Joseph’s Day zeppole are finished. Happy Father’s day from Sonia and GialloZafferano — see you next video recipe.