Carnevale in all of Italy is like Mardi Gras to New Orleans. What you may not know is that both of these hugely popular festivals represent a last celebration before the beginning of Lent, 40 days before Easter. It is a common celebration in many parts of the world, ranging from 1 day to 3 weeks of festivities.
Every country celebrates its festivals in its own unique way and most often there are customary foods that go hand in hand with the time-honored events. In Italy, one of the traditional foods to be found from north to south during Carnevale is frappe, a fried sweet dough in the shape of a rosette. But here at home in Canada, frappe are made for any occasion really, including bridal showers, wedding celebrations or feast days in honor of patron saints.
As with many Italian dishes, you will find that the name given to this pastry will vary depending on the region of Italy you come from. Other common names are chiacchiere, cioffe, naccatoli, or crostoli, and they come in various shapes and sizes. What are these delicate and beautiful pastries called in your hometown back in Italy?
Frappe are crispy and light as air when you bite into them and honestly you could eat several because they taste so good! This particular recipe from Nonna Caterina involves getting the dough so thin that it really is like air when you are eating it. We shape our frappe into rosettes but it is also common to prepare them as bows, strips, or braids.
We visited with five nonnas, who were preparing several trays of these for a special occasion. It is great to watch this production line as each of the nonnas has their own part of the frappe that they are responsible for. On this particular day, they made 40 eggs worth of dough! We have scaled down the recipe that follows for you to use at home.
The dough is prepared the day ahead and allowed to rest overnight. Then it is weighed and rolled in a pasta machine as you would do with pasta dough. Next it is cut into strips with a fancy-edged pastry cutter then rolled and pinched into beautiful rosettes that almost double in size once they are given a hot oil “bath” (a very quick fry in hot oil). Just before serving, sprinkle them with a little icing sugar and voilà…you have a favourite Italian pastry!
We discovered during the making of the frappe why nonnas don’t need to go to the gym to build strong arm muscles. Try kneading 40 eggs of dough and flour at a time! We were no competition for them!
Frappe
Ingredients
● 4 large eggs (remove one of the egg whites then beat the eggs slightly with a fork)
● 1 teaspoon dark rum
● 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
● 2 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour
● 4 teaspoons sugar
● 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
● zest of 1/4 lemon
● pinch of salt
● Vegetable oil for deep frying
Instructions
1. Add the beaten eggs, rum, and vanilla together and mix well.
2. Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and salt together and blend well to mix.
3. Place the flour mixture on a clean work surface and form a well in the middle.
4. Add the egg mixture to the well.
5. With your hands, begin mixing the flour mixture into the egg mixture starting from inside the well and work out being careful not to break the walls of the well.
6. When everything is combined, keep scraping the board and kneading so as to bring everything together into a log of dough.
7. Knead the dough using your palm and rolling forward. As the log gets longer, fold it into thirds onto itself and continue kneading and repeating this process for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and uniform in consistency. It should be a stiff dough that does not spring back much when indented with your finger.
8. You can cut the dough into more manageable size logs. Put each log into a food safe plastic bag/wrap, seal and let rest for about 15 minutes.
9. Then knead again for about another 5 minutes.
10. Let the dough rest covered overnight in food safe plastic bag/wrap.
11. When ready, cut the dough into small discs. We used 100 grams per disc but you can use less if you would like smaller frappe. Keep the rest of the dough covered at all times.
12. You are going to work the dough through a pasta maker as you would when making pasta dough. Start at the widest setting and pass the dough through each of the settings ending with the narrowest setting. This step is very important in order to get that thin, crispy texture.
13. You will now have a long panel of dough. Lay this flat on your work surface and with a fancy edged pastry cutter, cut the panel into 3 long ribbons.
14. You are going to form a rosette shape with each of the ribbons of dough by forming them into a circle and pinching the edges of the dough together as in the photos.
15. Cover the completed rosettes with food safe plastic wrap until ready to deep fry. If you are working alone, work in batches so that the rosettes do not dry out before frying.
For deep frying
Place about 4 inches of vegetable oil into a pot and heat oil to 350F. Carefully place 1 frappa at a time into the oil. It should immediately sizzle up and almost double in size. As soon as it is lightly coloured on both sides, remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and place upside down on a paper towel lined pan. Be careful not to stack too many onto each other as they will break apart.
Once they are cooled and when you are ready to serve them, sprinkle them lightly with icing sugar and arrange on a platter.
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