Sfince di San Giuseppe with pastry cream, fried or baked and filled with ricotta or pastry cream. These fritters are not prepared only for St. Joseph’s Day; the dessert seems to have very ancient origins. Under different names, it is mentioned even in the Bible and the Quran. It was the Arabs and Persians who transformed bread into sweet forms. However, it was the nuns of the Stimmate di San Francesco monastery in Palermo who prepared these fried pastries filled with ricotta and passed the recipe on to pastry chefs across the island. The name sfincia comes from Latin, meaning sponge, exactly like the pastry appears once fried — it has the look of a sponge.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Moderate
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 10 pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: St. Joseph's Day, Father's Day
- Energy 167.94 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 14.90 (g) of which sugars 0.20 (g)
- Proteins 5.64 (g)
- Fat 10.00 (g) of which saturated 4.02 (g)of which unsaturated 5.67 (g)
- Fibers 2.62 (g)
- Sodium 158.97 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 95 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 5 tbsp lard
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 5 eggs
- 1/2 tsp salt
Tools
- Parchment paper
- Hand mixer
- Electric whisk
- Saucepan
- Bowl
- Piping bag
Preparation
For the pastry cream, the recipe can be found HERE.
Put the lard and water in the saucepan and heat until the lard melts.
As soon as it starts to boil, turn off the heat and add all the flour at once; stir vigorously with a whisk to incorporate well.
Let the mixture cool, then patiently incorporate the eggs one at a time.
While the dough rests in the refrigerator, prepare the pastry cream; the quantities and instructions are provided there.
Pipe the sfince dough with a piping bag for the ones you want to bake. On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, draw circles (two concentric rings with the dough); don’t place them too close together. Bake for 25 minutes at 374°F.
Part of the batter, as I did, can be fried by spoonfuls dropped into hot oil. Once cooled, you can fill them with the pastry cream.
Here are my Sfince di San Giuseppe with pastry cream.
They may not look very pretty without powdered sugar and with cherries in spirit instead of sour cherries! But I assure you they are delicious.
