Saturday, April 30, 2016

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!


9 comments:

  1. Of course they are Italian ...the original line in the Godfather was leave the gun, take the zeppoles. Nah just made that up - actually Zeppoles is the equivalent of funnel cakes at fairs - you can always find them at a New York fair...

    i got to say they looked gorgeous - so here is the twist my husband family calls them zeppole and he actually had an uncle that would make them at family gatherings.

    now my family calls these belly bombers sfingis - my mom makes them often - I made them once wrote about them for my food blog a few years ago, and I have promised my kids that i will them again...where as a traditional zeppole recipe does not use ricotta cheese ( well at least i don't think so) the sfingi recipe does and you have to use Presto flour (my mom's recipe).

    they look good and tasty, another Pinterest win with a slight adjustment because the cook (you) knew better...

    Congratulations of completing the A-Z Challenge.

    You Rock !!!!!!

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  2. They look delicious, but not going to lie, I am terrified of deep frying anything. Maybe if I had my parents' deep fryer, one of those that actually had a lid, then I might!

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  3. Congratulations on finishing AND closing with a win!

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  4. Congratulations on finishing AND closing with a win!

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  5. How can you miss with fried dough or fried anything for that matter. You rocked this A-Z. Challenge WIN!

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  6. Congrats on finishing! Wish I had one or 4 right now.

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  7. it is a win! from someone who always wanted to be Italian! Jean-a

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  8. Those look really delicious. I also have little experience with deep frying so not sure if I'd have good luck or not. Congrats on your final A to Z challenge post!

    @WeekendsinMaine
    Weekends in Maine

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  9. Those look really delicious. I also have little experience with deep frying so not sure if I'd have good luck or not. Congrats on your final A to Z challenge post!

    @WeekendsinMaine
    Weekends in Maine

    ReplyDelete