Pignolata is a traditional Italian dessert made of small fried doughs covered in sweet syrup or honey, often flavored with lemon, orange, or chocolate. It is popular in Sicily, Calabria, and Naples and can be shaped like a pine cone or formed into a cake.
Pignolata is a dessert produced in southern Italy all year round, but especially during holidays such as Christmas. There are many regional variations of the pastry, although they can generally be described as tiny fried doughs covered in sweet syrup or honey. It can be covered with a lemon, orange or chocolate flavored glaze. A traditional style has more of a coating on the small pieces of dough: half lemon and half chocolate. The way pignolata is served is by assembling the fried dough pieces into a cone shape, similar to a pine cone, and allowing the glaze to act as a glue to hold the shape.
The name pignolata refers to the pine nuts, the shape the pieces of dough are said to resemble when cooked. The dish, also known as struffoli, is popular in Sicily, Calabria and Naples. While the name refers to pine nuts, they aren’t always an ingredient in dessert recipes. When pine nuts are used in pignolata, they are usually sprinkled on top, although some recipes call for them to be toasted, ground and mixed into the flour for the dough.
The basic dough is made from flour, sugar, eggs and water. Some versions involve adding white wine, cognac or lemon liqueur to the dough. Another variety of dough incorporates fats such as butter or lard into the flour so that the cooked dough remains soft and moist for an extended period of time. Whatever is added, the ingredients are kneaded together to form a dough, left to rest for an hour, then rolled into long, round pieces and cut into small shapes resembling a pine nut.
One part of preparing pignolata that is consistent with most recipes is the method of cooking the pieces of dough. They are fried in batches for a few minutes each. This creates a fluffy, light, fluffy dough. Once fired, the pieces are allowed to cool and drain before being coated.
One of the final steps in creating pignolata is to make the syrup to coat the dough pieces. This can be simple syrup, lemon syrup, or a chocolate coating. Some coatings are made with honey or unrefined sugar. Lemon liqueurs, light caramels and spices such as cinnamon can also be used. Once the syrup is made in a pan, the pastries are added to the pan for coating and then emptied onto a greased surface.
Most often, coated pignolatas are formed into a cone shape and left to dry with the syrup acting like a glue. Other preparations include making a square or circular cake from the pastries or separating them into small portions. Some recipes call for half of the covered pastry to be glazed with sugar or dipped in chocolate to create a two-tone effect on the finished pignolata.
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