Struffoli is a traditional Neapolitan dessert made with fried dough balls soaked in honey and often served with candy sprinkles. It is a popular Italian Christmas dish, and the dough is made with flour, eggs, and sometimes butter and citrus zest. The balls are fried in oil and coated in honey sauce before being stacked high on plates or used to create a festive garland.
Struffoli is a Neapolitan dessert that is traditionally prepared at Christmas. It is made with balls of dough that have been fried and soaked in honey. They are served stacked high on plates and platters and are often covered in colorful candy sprinkles or sprinkles.
This dish is said to have originated in Naples and has become a traditional Italian feast. Cooks prepare large batches of these honey balls for friends and family. When visiting relatives during the holidays, a dish or platter of struffoli is often brought as a gift for the guest.
The dough is made from flour, eggs and sometimes butter. Lemon and orange zest are sometimes added to the dough ingredients, as is sugar. The zest is the grated peel of citrus fruits. It can be purchased or you can grate the skin of fresh fruit, taking care to avoid grating the bitter, white inner skin. While ingredients would traditionally be added gradually to a pile of flour, most modern bakers use an electric mixer to prepare the dough. After it is prepared, it is covered with a towel or plastic wrap and left to rest for about an hour.
There are several methods for rolling dough balls. The dough can be rolled quite thin and then cut into small strips which are rolled into shape. Others take a handful of dough and fashionably long strings are the width of a little finger, from which small croquettes of dough are cut. The important thing is to make the balls very small, because they cook better when they are small.
The oil is heated in a deep, heavy pot until a piece of pasta is brown in about a minute. The struffoli are dropped into the hot oil in small batches and removed when they are golden brown, usually within a few minutes. The fried dough balls are dumped onto plates that have been lined with paper towels to catch the extra oil.
Honey sauce is made from honey, sugar and sometimes lemon juice. These ingredients are placed in a saucepan and heated until the honey is liquefied but not boiling hot. The struffoli are then dropped into the honey mixture and carefully coated.
Some cooks stack the struffoli high on plates and platters, while others use the fried honey balls to create a festive garland. A glass jar is placed on a tray and the struffoli are piled around it. After the honey has solidified, the jar can be removed and the crown of struffoli will keep its shape. The food is then decorated with multi-colored candy sprinkles and candied fruit.
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