Read Fabulicious!: Teresa's Italian Family Cookbook Online
Authors: Teresa Giudice
Fabulicious!: Teresa's Italian Family Cookbook (28 page)
5.
To make the icing: Sift the confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Add the milk and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
6.
Place the cookies on the rack over a baking sheet. Spoon the icing over the cookies, letting the excess icing drip onto the baking sheet. Immediately scatter the sprinkles over the cookies and let dry. (The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to a week.)
Franco and Filomena on their wedding day, 1969.
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Juicy Bits from Joe
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I
guess Tre already told you about her family, so let me tell you a bit about mine. I have one brother, Pietro, and one sister, Maria. They each have three kids. So including Tre’s brother’s kids, we have nine nieces and nephews total. All good kids. Cute kids. My father’s name is Franco. My mother is Filomena. They’ve been married 42 years. They live real close, and we see them all the time.
Makes about 18
Zeppole
are fried dough balls traditionally associated with San Giuseppe’s feast day on March 19. San Giuseppe is Saint Joseph, Jesus’ foster father. It’s also Father’s Day in Italy. Like a lot of Italian classics, every village and every family has its own recipe. Some are sweet, some are rich, and some—like my family’s—are very simple.
1 (2 ¼-ounce) envelope instant or quick-rising yeast
2½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, as needed
¼ teaspoon salt
Olive oil, for deep-frying
Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish
1.
Pour 1 cup cold tap water into a bowl and add the yeast. Stir in 1 cup of the flour and the salt. Gradually stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft, sticky dough. Knead the dough in the bowl, adding a little more flour if needed to keep the dough from sticking to your hands, until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Do not add too much flour—the dough is supposed to be moist and tacky.
2.
Shape the dough into a ball and let it sit in the bowl. Coat the top of the dough with olive oil. Cover with a damp kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Let stand in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
3.
Pour enough olive oil into a large, deep saucepan to come halfway up the sides and heat to 350°F. Lay a brown paper bag on a large baking sheet. Rinse your hands under cold water. Working in 2 or 3 batches, pull off golf-ball-sized pieces of dough, shape loosely into balls, and carefully drop into the oil. Fry until the balls puff and turn a beautiful golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove from the oil and place on the paper bag to drain.
4.
Transfer the warm zeppole to a platter. Sift a generous amount of confectioners’ sugar through a wire sieve over them. Serve warm.
When in Rome . . .
Zeppole = TZEE-powl-ee
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Just Don’t Call Them Donut Holes
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D
epending on where you’re from—in Italy and in America—you might call
zeppole
(
zeppola
is the singular) by another name: zeppoli, zippuli, sfinge, crispellis, or mangonillis. Some use a potato dough. Some are stuffed with anchovies. But made any way, they are delish!
Stuff It
Instead of dusting the zeppole with confectioner’s sugar on the outside, you can flavor zeppole from the inside. Before frying, pull the dough ball apart, stick a piece of apple inside, and close it up. (For a savory appetizer, you could use a piece of anchovy.) Or, after the balls are fried, poke a hole in each one and pipe in Nutella.
Deep-Fried Dilemma
I know, I know, deep-frying anything isn’t healthy, and using olive oil to do it isn’t cheap. My answer to the health issue is, you should only deep-fry things for very special-occasion treats, and when you do, don’t stuff your face. As for the cost, well, in Italy, most cooks can use as much olive oil as they want because it’s usually free, crushed from olives right in their backyard! If olives don’t grow in your backyard, but you can afford it, I’d still deep-fry with a good extra-virgin olive oil. Even using 3 inches in a pan, it’s not going to cost you more than $10, and this is a special dessert we’re making. If you want to use a cheaper oil, I’d say go with a regular, non-virgin olive oil. If you have to use a vegetable oil, just don’t tell me about it, and we’ll pretend this whole thing never happened.
Makes 12 servings
This is a fairly hearty, heavy cake in texture, although it’s amazingly healthy for a dessert (no butter, no vegetable oil, and just ⅓ egg per serving!). It’s not as sweet or airy as a regular bakery cake, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s more of a pound cake, less of a slather-it-with-frosting cake. Serve in small slices with a little whipped cream or ice cream on the side. You will need an angel food cake pan to bake this—the kind with a tube in the middle and a removable bottom.
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ⅓ cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened, natural applesauce
⅓ cup fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
2 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 Golden Delicious apples
Cinnamon and sugar, for coating the apples
1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs and the sugar and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until they are light and fluffy, at least 3 minutes. Add the applesauce, orange juice, vanilla, and salt, and mix again until just blended.
3.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and the baking powder. Do not skip the sifting! It’s very important! Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture ½ cup at a time.
4.
Peel and core the apples, and then cut them into quarters. Cut each quarter into thin slices ¼-inch thick. (Do not do this ahead of time, as the apple slices will turn brown!) Put half of the apples slices in a bowl and coat with cinnamon and sugar. Leave the other half plain.
5.
Grease (really grease!) the pan, even the inside tube. Pour half of the batter in the pan. Lay the sugared apple slices in a single layer on the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the apple slices in the pan.
6.
Carefully lay the plain apple slices on top of the cake in a spiral pattern, overlapping each other halfway. If they sink a bit, that’s OK. Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown. Set on a wire cooling rack to cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of the pan and the tube. Carefully remove the cake from the pan, but leave it on the tube insert. Let cool completely on the wire rack. When cooled, slip a knife between the cake and the insert, and carefully lift up and remove the cake. Transfer the cake to a platter, with the apples on top. Serve with whipped or iced cream and coffee.
Me, my mommy, and Milania in Naples, 2010.
