Carnival fritters with Strega liqueur, crispy, bubbly, and melt-in-your-mouth, very easy to make, without yeast, with eggs, flour, a bit of butter and sugar for a perfect result. I love fritters and every year I enjoy trying them in many different versions. Today I wanted to try them with Alchermes, but then, since I had bought a bottle of Strega liqueur some time ago to use for desserts, on my sister’s advice, who says it gives a delightful aroma to desserts, even though she recommended it for cakes and bundt cakes, I wanted to try it with fritters too. I’m not sure how much of the Strega flavor was noticeable in the end, but I can assure you they were delicious, by the time I finished taking a couple of photos they were already gone. My niece was waiting eagerly, and at the end of the party, five of us devoured half of them with the intention of making them again soon because fritters are irresistible, and one leads to another. Meanwhile, I’ll give you this recipe, surely in the coming days, I’ll try others, I’ll also share the other versions, all delicious, even without eggs. You can find this recipe in the Carnival desserts collection.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 20 Minutes
- Preparation time: 40 Minutes
- Portions: serves 6 people (about 30 fritters)
- Cooking methods: Frying
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Carnival
Ingredients for carnival fritters with Strega
- 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tbsps cold butter
- 3 tbsps sugar
- 2 tbsps Strega liqueur
- to taste vanilla
- 2 medium eggs
- flour for dusting
- to taste vanilla powdered sugar
- sunflower oil for frying
Tools to prepare carnival fritters with Strega
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Pasta machine
- 1 Pastry wheel
- 1 Pan
- 1 Tongs
- 4 Paper towels
- 1 Tray
Steps to prepare carnival fritters with Strega
Let’s start by preparing the dough for the fritters. It’s essentially a shortcrust pastry. To prepare it quickly, start mixing butter and sugar in a bowl, then add flour to get a sandy mixture. At this point, add eggs, liqueur, and vanilla, and knead to obtain a smooth and elastic dough. Unlike usual shortcrust pastry, this time we work it a bit more to make it elastic and roll it thin without breaking. Let it rest for at least 10 minutes.
In the meantime, set up the pasta machine. Since mine is manual, I have to fix it to a table or counter. It takes some time to set up. Alternatively, work on a surface with a rolling pin. Prepare a clean work surface where you can lay the thin sheets of our carnival fritters as you roll them out, such as the kitchen table. No need to dust with flour.
Put some flour in a bowl to help us roll out thin sheets without sticking.
Take our dough, work it a bit more, if it’s soft we can add a little flour, on the contrary, but we’ll notice it even before, if too hard we can add more liquids.
Divide the dough into 6 parts. Start rolling the first one, flouring it well, and passing it through the pasta machine with open rollers, so at number one, pass it through number one several times, folding the dough, and using flour if needed, to obtain a uniform, smooth, and regular sheet, then as we roll it out other times, close the rollers one level at a time, until stopping at the penultimate, mine goes from 1 to 6, I stop at 5. Since I used flour to roll it out, I don’t need more when laying them on the surface.
With a fluted or smooth wheel, cut all our fritters into rectangles or any shape we want. Leave them on the surface while we prepare for cooking.
Immediately heat abundant oil in a large thick pan, so it maintains a constant temperature better. Then prepare a tray with paper towels.
When the oil reaches about 340-355°F, we can start frying our fritters, you will immediately see many bubbles forming, a very good sign, turn them to get the perfect shape and then let them brown in the hot oil, at that point, they are ready, drain them, and dry them on paper towels, never overlapping them, in fact, layer them with paper towels between each layer. Continue until complete.
Then put the dried fritters on a tray to form a layer, and sprinkle with powdered sugar, put another layer and add more powdered sugar, and so on. At this point, our carnival fritters with Strega are ready to enjoy, assuming there are any left, mine by this point are already gone. I also prepared some with dark chocolate on top, which literally disappeared, my niece kept saying, now I taste, she tastes, I taste, and they don’t end, fritters are like that, one leads to another.
