Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all had a very lovely Christmas and are ready to take on the New Year. I have set myself a few challenges for the coming year, one is to finally sort out our vegetable patch and grow our own veg for the coming year, I am sure it will come with many failures but hopefully I will learn and have some success. I also want to learn to crochet, after my success of teaching myself to knit last year and creating my gorgeous blanket and teaching myself to sew I hope by the end of the year I will have something new to show you that I have managed to crochet! Hopefully !!!
As is the normal tradition for me, I received a mountain of gorgeous books for Christmas, from literature, interior design, farming, poaching (the catching a rabbit sort, not cooking sort) to good old Italian cooking, a gorgeous book about Nonna’s and their recipes, so what better way to start the year than with a recipe that takes me right back to Jasmine and the days when she use to make us the most delicious doughnuts, made using potato, hot from the fryer, covered in sugar, I always burnt my mouth as I was always to keen to eat them and would never wait until they had cooled and were safe to eat ! It always amused Jasmine.
So for Christmas Hubby got his much longed for deep fat fryer, I finally gave in, but only if he promised that the first thing he cooked in it were these doughnuts. The recipe comes from one of my favourite books Light of Lucia and I have adapted it to be as close to Jasmine’s recipe as I can get it, but below is Luciana’s full recipe for Zeppole di San Giuseppe. We didn’t use icing sugar or bother with the honey, we just followed the recipe for the dough, fried them, covered them in caster sugar and ate them hot. My brood also said that they would prefer them without the lemon zest next time and I agree, but if I was adding the honey I would leave it in, the fresh zest would cut beautifully through the sweet honey.
These doughnuts are a family delight, once the dough had risen we gathered around, Luca and I made the little rings, Hubby fried, Rosie tossed them in the sugar and then we all enjoyed them together, a lovely family moment. The dough made a mountain of doughnuts, so even if all of them had of been at home there would of been enough to go round.
They are a little work to prepare, but so yummy, light and fluffy, covered it lots of sugar, served with an espresso and a shot of Limoncello, pure heaven.
Buon anno
500g potatoes, peeled
3 eggs, lightly beaten
190g caster sugar
100ml extra virgin olive oil
Zest of 2 lemons
15g fresh yeast, dissolved with a pinch of sugar in 25ml warm milk
600g plain flour
Rapeseed oil for deep-frying
60g sifted icing sugar with 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons warm clear honey
Place the potatoes in a saucepan of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer until tender. Drain and put through a potato ricer or push through a fine sieve into a large bowl.
Add the egg, sugar, olive oil, lemon zest and yeast mixture and mix well. Add the flour and mix until the dough comes together. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 6 minutes or so, I did mine in the Artisan, but either way will work well. The dough should be soft but not to sticky. You may need to add a little more flour or milk.
Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean tea towel (I use a shower cap I keep just for this purpose) and leave to rest for 40 minutes to one hour, or until doubled in size.
Heat the oil in a large deep saucepan or deep-fryer to 165C, 315F.
Working with one piece at a time, roll a chestnut sized piece of dough into a finger length sausage shape, cross the ends to form a loop and carefully drop into the hot oil. I rolled mine into a ball, then the sausage shape, wrapped it around two fingers to form the hole and joined it, this method worked well.
Cook until they rise to the surface, turn and cook until golden all over. Remove and drain on paper towel. We then covered ours in caster sugar and ate them, but if you want to follow Luciana’s recipe keep reading…
Dust then with the icing sugar combined with cinnamon and pile on a serving platter. Drizzle with warm honey and serve immediately.
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