Frittelle Veneziane · Fritole Veneziane
Veneto · dolce · serves 24 · 180 min total · medium
The official dolce of the Venetian Republic — declared so in the 1700s by the Doge, who proclaimed the fritola "the dolce of the state". A guild of fritoléri held the monopoly on selling them on Venetian streets at Carnival. Today still made through January and February in every Venetian pasticceria, eaten from a paper cone walking along the calli. The plain version with sultanas and pine nuts is the original; the cream-filled is a 20th-century luxury.
Ingredients
- 500 g 00 flour
- 15 g fresh yeast
- 300 ml warm milk
- 80 g sugar
- 2 eggs eggs
- 50 g melted butter
- 1 pinch pinch of salt
- 180 g sultanas, soaked in grappa
- 80 g pine nuts
- 1 orange orange zest
- 1 lemon lemon zest
- 40 ml grappa
- 2 L oil for frying (peanut or sunflower)
- 150 g sugar for coating
Method
- Dissolve yeast in warm milk with a spoon of sugar. Stand 10 minutes until foamy.
- Mix flour, remaining sugar, salt, orange and lemon zest. Add the milk-yeast, eggs, melted butter and grappa. Whisk vigorously into a thick, soft, slightly sticky batter — wetter than a bread dough, holding its shape on a spoon.
- Fold in the drained sultanas and pine nuts.
- First rise: cover, 2 hours in a warm spot — until bubbled and doubled.
- Heat the oil to 170°C (340°F) in a deep wide pot — frittelle need room to bob.
- Use two spoons (or a small ice-cream scoop) to drop walnut-sized blobs of batter into the oil. Don't crowd. The fritole will sink, then rise; they should brown for 4 minutes, turning once.
- Lift onto paper. Immediately roll while hot in the coating sugar so it sticks.
- Eat hot, standing up, in newspaper twists. (Variations: pasticcerie split open the warm frittelle and pipe in crema pasticcera or zabaione — the Veneziani argue endlessly about whether this is allowed.)