The struffoli is a typical italian dessert, which represents one of the most characteristic recipes for Christmas time.
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Welcome to the GialloZafferano kitchen. I’m Sonia and today we’ll be preparing Struffoli — a traditional Christmas treat from the Campania region of Italy. Let’s see what we’ll need.
• 4 tbsp of butter
• 3 whole eggs plus 1 yolk
• 3 tbsp of sugar
• ½ shot of liqueur (sambuca, rum or brandy)
• The zests of ½ a lemon and ½ an orange
• A pinch of salt
• 3 1/5 cups of flour Those are the ingredients for the batter. For the coating you’ll need:
• Various candied fruit cut into cubes, this of course is optional
• ¾ of a cup of sprinkles
• 1 cup of honey
Let’s make our struffoli!
First of all, put the flour into a large bowl and create a dent in the centre. Now add the rest of the ingredients. The eggs, the liqueur, the sugar, the grated zests, a pinch of salt and the butter. Now we can knead it together.
Once the ingredients are mixed together in the bowl, continue to knead it out onto a worktop. Continue at the dough until it’s smooth and even like this. Now cover it in a clean tea towel and leave it to rest for about a half hour in a cool place.
After the dough has rested, divide it into small pieces and begin to roll a piece into a thin snake about the thickness of a finger. You can make it even thinner if you’d like. Now, divide the snake into little pieces.
Once you’ve cut up all of the dough into pieces spread them out onto a tea towel without covering them. Get a pan ready with some peanut oil and heat without letting it boil or smoke, and add some of the dough pieces. You should fry them until just golden but not until browned so pay close attention to how they’re cooking and once they’re golden scoop them out and spread them onto a plate covered in kitchen roll.
Here are our struffoli. Once you’ve fried them all, you can move on to prepare the topping.
In a pot big enough for all the struffoli, heat the honey until it thins. Then add the struffoli, mix together well to coat each piece, and after add half of the sprinkles, and half of the candied fruit. Mix together well and then turn it out onto a plate.
Pour the struffoli onto a plate and pile it into a cone shape. Finish them off with the rest of the sprinkles and the rest of the candied fruit to your tastes. After this the struffoli are finished! From Sonia and GialloZafferano, Merry Christmas and see you next time!