Carnival frappe scented with anise and olive oil, without butter. How to make them crunchy and bubbly easy to make at home, starting with a simple pastry scented with vanilla, lemon zest, and anise liqueur, but if you prefer you can use another liqueur, grappa is also fine, but with anise the scent is stronger. The frappe, cenci, chiacchiere, bugie, lattughe, or whatever other name they are known by are the most popular carnival sweets. For carnival, fried sweets are the most popular, chiacchiere along with fritters are the most consumed sweets and making them at home is really simple, and with what it costs to buy them, even up to €100.00 per kg, crazy stuff, I make a wagon of them with less than 5 euros and if I don’t have anise at home, I use another liqueur, I certainly don’t buy it on purpose.

Difficulty: Very easy
Cost: Very cheap
Rest time: 20 Minutes
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Portions: 2 trays
Cooking methods: Frying
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: Carnival

Ingredients for crunchy carnival frappe without butter with anise

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 medium eggs
3 tbsps sugar
1 1/2 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup anise liqueur
zest of 1 lemon
to taste vanilla seeds
Sunflower oil for frying
to taste vanilla flavored powdered sugar
flour to work with as needed

Tools to prepare carnival frappe

1 Bowl
1 Grater
1 Pastry board
1 Pasta machine
Pans
1 Pastry wheel
1 Tongs
1 Strainer
6 Absorbent paper

Steps to prepare carnival frappe

In a bowl, put all the ingredients for the dough, grated lemon zest, sugar, eggs, oil, liqueur, vanilla, and flour and work to obtain a homogeneous, non-sticky dough. If needed, use a little more flour, depending on the size of the eggs. It’s better to work on a flat surface. Let it rest for about 20 minutes, on a surface under the bowl.
Flour the dough, stretch it, and divide it into small portions, at least 5.
Roll it out with the pasta rolling machine, up to the penultimate setting. On the first setting, fold and refold the dough to get a perfect sheet, using a little flour if needed. Use a little flour also on the surface where the ready sheets are placed.
Cut the frappe with a pastry wheel, into strips about 3 inches long and at least 1 1/2 inches wide or more, depending on taste.
Fry a few at a time, without overlapping them, in plenty of hot oil at about 356°F. Immerse them well in the oil to make them puff up, using tongs if needed, then turn them over and let them brown on both sides.
Dry on absorbent paper, and use more paper layer by layer, as they make quite a few, so prepare 2 nice trays.
In the end, remove the oil-soaked paper, sprinkle with powdered sugar and our delicious frappe are ready to enjoy, crunchy and bubbly with a good anise scent, they are a real temptation, one leads to another, and they are crispy and melt in your mouth.