Hello friends, today a delicious recipe, perfect St. Joseph’s Zeppole! The secret is to create a dough that is neither too soft nor too hard to achieve an excellent rise and finally the right cooking so that they don’t deflate and have a raw inside. I know you may not get them perfect the first time, but don’t give up and try again. My first zeppole were like crepes 😂 but getting familiar with the dough and perfecting it every time, now they look like little masterpieces 😍. Let’s get to work!!!
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Very Cheap
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 15 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Father's Day, Carnival
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 6 tbsp sunflower oil
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 5 Medium eggs
- 1 pinch salt
Tools
The mixer you’ll find below is the same model as mine, it’s spectacular!
- 1 Mixer
- 1 Pastry Bag
Steps
1. In a pot, put: water, oil, and a pinch of salt.
2. When the water comes to a boil, add the flour all at once and mix well. When a white film forms at the bottom of the pot and the dough forms, give it two more stirs and turn off the heat.
3. Now let it cool completely, mixing occasionally.
4. When the dough has completely cooled, it’s time to add the eggs. If you want to work your biceps, go ahead with a wooden spoon, otherwise, use a planetary mixer with the leaf hook.
5. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the next egg only when the previous one has been well absorbed into the dough.
6. As mentioned at the beginning, the dough should not be too solid or too soft. If it’s too solid, you can safely add another egg.
7. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
8. After this time, fill the pastry bag with a star nozzle and form the St. Joseph’s Zeppole, spacing them out as they will increase in volume during cooking. I always make two rounds of dough to form a zeppola.
9. If baking, place them in a preheated oven at 392°F for 20 minutes. Obviously, take them out when they are well golden.
10. If frying, make parchment paper squares and place one zeppola on each, then immerse in oil once it has reached a temperature of 338°F. Immerse no more than 2 zeppole at a time to avoid lowering the oil temperature too much. The parchment paper will naturally detach once the zeppola starts cooking, allowing you to remove it from the oil.
11. Once our St. Joseph’s Zeppole are ready, you can fill them to your liking; I filled them with lemon diplomat cream and decorated them with a cherry and a dusting of powdered sugar.
