Z is for Zeppole

Zoinks! "Z" is finally here!

This pin is one of the first ones I found when I was looking for Pinterest challenges for the A to Z Challenge. Does that mean I re-created the pin weeks and weeks ago, so it would be ready to post on the last day?

I think we all know better than that.

Here's the pin:

http://www.bakingbeauty.net/
easy-zeppole-recipe/

I don't know if these are really Italian or not. I will leave that up to my friend Marisa at SquaareCat to affirm or deny this as an Italian treat. Until then, I'm going with Italian.

The pinner claimed this was a 20 minute recipe. She lied. It was not. I'd call it a 45 minute recipe, a little less if you heat the oil while you're mixing the ingredients. But I digress.

The dough (which is really more of a batter) was made from two eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and ricotta cheese. Yep, you read that right. Ricotta cheese. (It HAS to be Italian if it has ricotta cheese in it, right?)

Beat the eggs until foamy, then stir in all the ingredients except the ricotta cheese and mix just until combined. Fold in the ricotta cheese and get ready to fry.

Dough.

Folding in ricotta cheese.

Dough + ricotta = batter

Scoop the batter dough batter with a cookie scoop and drop in the hot oil, turning occasionally. Here's where the pinner and I differ on the frying of the zeppole.

Here goes....

They look like hushpuppies.

I don't deep fry very often, and what I know about deep frying would probably fit on the head of a pin, but 375 degrees was a little hot. The recipe called for frying the zeppole for 3-4 minutes, but less than two minutes after dropping my first few in the oil and they were so brown I thought they would be ruined if they stayed in any longer, so I fished them out, sprinkled them with powdered sugar after they had drained on paper towels, and then bit into one.

Oops. Perhaps a little, um, rare.


I took the pan off the burner until the oil cooled down to 350 degrees, then fried the next batch. Much better. I was able to leave them in for four minutes without overly browning them, and the innards were done this time.

And know what? They were really, really GOOD. Very tender inside. Sweet, but not too sweet. Who cares if they are Italian or not? After all, the only thing that REALLY mattered was that I had a topic for "Z"!

You're probably going to want to make these.

Pinterest WIN!