The typical Christmas Zeppolas

These sweet things are typical of the Costiera Amalfitana and they are fried little ring shaped-cakes made up by flour, water, milk and anisette and dressed with honey, diavulilli ( the typical little and coloured sugared almonds that reminds the Christmas tree decorations) and with orange peel. Among the traditional Neapolitan crafts there was even those of the zeppolas maker who was used to fry these ring shaped-cakes in lard dressing them with honey.

Ingredients:

5 Cups of Water
5 Cups of Flour
200 gr. of Milk
A pinch of salt
A little quantity of Anisette
1 Lemon Peel

For the top dressing:

1kg of Honey
Some Orange Peels
Some Lemon Peels
A little quantity of Anisette

DIRECTIONS:

Put the water, the milk, the anisette and the salt in a big saucepan, light the kitchen range and before this mixture starts to boil you should spill rapidly in it  the winnowed flour.

Mix everything with a wooden spoon on the fire until this mixture starts to is pinched from the saucepan’s walls.

Pour the obtained dough on a slightly grease table and work on it very well in order to make it smooth and homogeneous.

After that, cut into peaces this dough by rolling it up to obtain some 15 cm length little sticks by crossing their ends in  order to create a ring. Prick every zeppola with a fork to avoid the formation on their surface of a stale patina that would compromise the final result.

Uncooked zeppolas

Fry the zeppolas in abundant boiling oil and, once they are cooked and gild , place them on some blotting paper to absorb their oil.  

Fried zeppolas

Finally you should immerse the zeppolas in to the honey that you should previously cook on fire pouring into it the anisette, the orange and the lemon peels. Spread on them some sugar or some coloured little sugared almonds.

At this point you have prepared some delicious zeppolas that will maintain fragrant for two or three days. The recommended wine to accompany these sweet things is the Muscat one.

Related Articles: