Directions
Zeppole di San Giuseppe is one of the treasures of Italian pastry, those crunchy puff pastry delights filled with custard and then crowned with sour cherries in syrup. Everything is then enriched with a final sprinkling of icing sugar.
But in reality, the zeppole are nothing more than a refinement of the classic Neapolitan carnival tortelli, which are always made with cream puff pastry, which in French is called choux pastry, but are only covered with powdered sugar. The recipe is ancient. Even Goethe himself, the famous German writer, tells us in his Travels to Italy that all of Naples became an open-air fryer during the Carnival, where tortelli and zeppole were fried in front of every house in large pots of boiling oil.
Over the years, the tortelli has become more precious. From simple fried food, they have become the zeppole, real masterpieces, a challenging terrain where the best Neapolitan pastries, but also from all over Italy, challenge each other with strokes of dough and custard. Little by little, the zeppole has become the symbol of Father’s Day, so much so that it is now traditional to prepare these sweets and bring them as a gift to the fathers, for Father’s Day, on St. Joseph’s day.
Making the zeppole di San Giuseppe is not complex. The process is clear, the recipe is straightforward, and it combines fried puff pastry and custard. There are no secrets. No, that is difficult to find the proper doses of sweetness because the zeppole di San Giuseppe must be delicate, the fried is a puff, the pasta must be light, never greasy, fried on the spot. There must be no raw parts inside. On the contrary, they must be well cooked and puffy. They must be small balloons to be filled with delicious custard in practice. But fear not, we have the honor of presenting you the recipe of a great Neapolitan pastry chef, a legend who shared with us his recipe for San Giuseppe zeppole. Thanks and Gennaro for.
Ingredients and doses for making San Giuseppe’s donuts
To make 12 donuts of 10 centimeters in diameter
- 280 ml of water
- 170 grams of butter
- 270 grams of flour
- 6 grams of salt
- 6 eggs
- 12 sour cherries in syrup
- powdered sugar for sprinkling
For the custard
- 4 yolks
- 60 grams of sugar
- 60 grams of flour
- 5 grams of vanilla powder
- 800 ml of milk
How to make the donuts of San Giuseppe
Making puff pastry is very simple, but you have to work the dough quickly to prevent lumps from forming: the only recommendation is this, for the rest, don’t worry, it will be a walk, not a recipe!
Take a large pot, pour in the water, sugar and butter cut into small pieces, then turn on the stove and heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Continue to cook until the water boils.
Now there is the most challenging step, so be ready to work with speed and precision: remove the pot from the fire and place it on a shelf to work comfortably, then pour all the flour into the boiling water and stir vigorously with a spoonful of wood to mix the flour.
Put the pot back on the stove and continue to cook, always on a moderate flame and in the meantime stir. It takes a couple of minutes, but soon the dough will become more consistent and sticky, so much so that it will stick to the sides of the pot. You continue to mix until the edge of the dough becomes almost white, almost a kind of patina forms. At this point, turn off and put the pot back on the shelf and wait a few minutes for the dough to cool, at least 10 minutes.
We have already done the tricky part, now you have to knead the dough and add the eggs, so if you have a planetary mixer, it will be child’s play. Put the dough in the mixer bowl and start kneading with the leaf hook. Pour in the eggs one at a time and not before the previous one has been well blended. In all, you have to work the dough for 5 minutes: when the dough is thick and firm, turn it off and take a spoon. Attention the dough must be compact, not liquid or too soft.
Fried or baked zeppole?
Now there are two cooking philosophies: frying or baking donuts. Honestly, it is always better to cook the donuts in the oven to avoid calories and fat, but it is a matter of preference. Cooking in the oven is undoubtedly more prolonged, but it guarantees a drier and less greasy zeppola, not to mention that even if it cools, it will not have defects or imperfections. Those fried once they have cooled become heavy and cloying.
Baking San Giuseppe zeppole
Turn on the oven, setting the temperature to 200 degrees centigrade. Take a baking tray and line it with parchment paper. Put the dough in a pastry bag with a star spout and mash it to form donuts with the classic shape of spiral donuts, with a diameter of 8-10 centimeters. This phase is also delicate, be careful not to disperse the dough, which must be compact. You have to build a nest of choux pastry. You don’t want to make donuts that are too small. Otherwise, you risk that those who eat them find it hard to hold them with the filling and sour cherries. With the sac a poche, you can also make a triple or quadruple donut, making more and more rounds of dough if you want the most swollen and plump donuts.
When you have finished making the donuts, put the pan in the oven and cook for about 18-20 minutes, being careful never to open the oven. It is imperative that everything is perfect and never opened before. Otherwise, the sudden temperature change could ruin the donuts. After 18 minutes, turn off, open the oven door just a little, and let the zeppole cool down. When they are cold, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Now comes the fun part: the filling of the zeppole. Pour the egg yolks and sugar into a saucepan and work them with an electric whisk for 4 minutes until the mixture is thick, whitish, puffy, and fluffy. At this point, start adding the flour, with the vanilla powder inside, a little at a time, but without stirring with the same enthusiasm as before: calmly. Dilute with the cold milk poured slowly and start mixing with energy. As soon as the cream reaches a boil, immediately turn off the stove and continue stirring. Add 10 grams of butter and melt it, stirring constantly. Let it cool until it is almost cold, then put it in a sac a poche, but this time mount the small 1 cm spout and cover the San Giuseppe donuts with waves of custard. If you want, you can also stuff the inside, but by doing so, they become bombs of not indifferent calories, fats and sugars. Covering the surface is more than enough! Put a sour cherry on top to crown the cake and the donuts are ready!
Fried San Giuseppe Donuts
If you want to fry the puff pastry to make the zeppole, you need a pot, a thermometer and sunflower oil for frying. Take the pot, pour 2 liters of oil, and bring the temperature to 180 degrees centigrade. Check with an instant thermometer. Take the donuts, throw them in boiling oil, cook for 3 minutes, turn them over with a skimmer, and cook for another 2 minutes. An old trick to avoid pulping the donuts is to cut the parchment paper under the raw donuts, shaping as many squares as there are donuts. In this way, you can take them individually without crushing or damaging them and throw them in the steaming oil.
Which wine to pair with San Giuseppe’s zeppole?
Sweetness, creaminess and a lot of sugar are the characteristics of these desserts, so do not hesitate and combine a thick, alcoholic and tannic wine such as Sagrantino di Montefalco. If you want something stronger, uncork a wide-ranging fortified wine such as sweet vermouth, Port wine, Marsala, Madeira wine, Sherry, or delicious Calvados.
If you want to combine a cocktail, choose the charm of the Godfather.
