Neapolitan recipe: zeppole

Zeppole di San Giuseppe are easy to recognize by the bright cherry and powdered sugar! Here is a recipe of famous Neapolitan dessert.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 200 g flour;
• 80 g butter;
• 60 g sugar;
• 2 cups of water;
• 4 eggs;
• 1 package of baking powder;
• A pinch of salt;
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract.

For the cream:

• 2 egg yolks;
• 60 g sugar;
• 1 tbsp flour;
• 230 g milk;
• Twist of lemon.

For decoration and cooking process:

• Some cherries;
• Powdered sugar;
• Aluminium foil;
• Pastry bag;
• Baking paper.

Preparation:

1. Let’s start cooking the dough. Put on the stove the mix of water, butter and salt, bring it to boil.
2. Put it away from fire. Add the flour, mix it thoroughly. Turn back the mix into fire, cook it around 3 minutes, stir it from time to time.
3. Cool the dough down into room temperature, then add sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and baking powder. Beat it up with mixer (medium speed), until the moment it will get uniform consistency.
4. Let’s turn into cream cooking. Put the milk into the fire with grated twist of lemon, bring it into the boil. Meanwhile, beat up the egg yolks with sugar, add flour and mix it thoroughly. When the milk starts to boil, out it away from fire, add the egg yolks with sugar and mix it again. Then put it into the fire, until the mix won’t become thicker. Transfer the cream in a dish, cover it with the film and leave it to cool down.
5. Turning back to the dough! Spread baking paper in the table, grease in with the thin layer of olive oil. With the help of a pastry bag (recommended hole is 1, 2 cm) form the spiral rings from the dough (around 6-7 cm diameter), with a hole inside. Cut the baking paper into squares (one separate square for each zeppole).
6. Heat the butter in pot until 170 degrees (it’s recommended to use food probe). Take one zeppole with the paper and carefully put it into the pot. Leave it to fry for 2-3 minutes, then turn it over and leave for other 2 minutes. Total time for 1 zeppole in the pot is 5-6 minutes. Put it away and make the same actions with others.
7. Dry well all the zeppole with paper towels to put away extra oil. When they get room temperature, apply some powdered sugar and fill them with cream. Last touch is a cherry on the top and some more powdered sugar.

Buon appetito!

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