Struffoli

Look at me two posts in two days!!

WOW

OK so in addition to all of the cookies I make, my family and I also get together for one day in December and spend it making Struffoli.

I am always surprised to hear how many people have never hear of, or had. Struffoli!?
That is so sad.

Struffoli is a Neapolitan dish made of marble sized balls of dough that are deep fried.

They should be crunchy on the outside and light inside.
After cooled they are tossed in honey and sprinkled with nonpareils.

I know of struffoli because my Grandma Mary (Mom's Mom) used to make them.  She was not Italian, but my Grandpa Sal (Mom's Dad) was. 
After they were married they lived with his parents for a time and so her cooking was always heavily Italian influenced. 

She passed away many years ago, but i always had this faint memory of these sticky balls with sprinkles on my Mom's coffee table as we opened Christmas presents.  Finally, when i was in undergrad, my Mom and I decided to try and recreate the magic.

Armed with her dough recipe and ancient deep fryer (which was a major fire hazard) we got to work.

Making Struffoli is a daunting task. 
The dough is sticky and unruly and each ball needs to be rolled individually by hand then deep fried. 
It literally takes about 7 hours but we get enough to give to about 10 people.

If you have the time it is well worth it.

Struffoli

12 eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup of canola oil
8 cups of flour
5 tsp baking powder
2 cups of sugar
1 tbs vanilla
32oz honey

Mix together flour and baking soda (start with 6 cups of flour and reserve the rest). 
In a separate bowl combine oil and sugar. 
Mix eggs into wet, one at a time. 
Add zest and vanilla. 
Add the flour mixture one cup at a time until the mixture forms a dough that you can handle.  If it is still too sticky add flour 1/4 cup at a time.  If it gets too dried out add oil 1 tbs at a time.

Heat the oil in to 400 degrees.
Now comes the hard part, as this recipe is really all about technique.
Pick off a 1/2 a handful of dough.
Cut off a strip about 1/2" wide.
Flour your surface and and roll this strip out into a long "dough snake" about 1/4" thick.
 

 

Cut the snake into equal size pieces, the same length as the width of the snake.

 
The pieces look small but they will puff up when fried.
Next dust your hands with flour and roll each individual piece until it is a uniform ball.

When you have a "plate full of balls" places them into your frying basket.  Here i used a spider.

Fry drop the balls in the hot oil. 

 Agitate the oil so that the balls don't stick together. 

As the balls fry dunk them down every so often or they will only cook on one side.

When they are golden remove from oil onto paper towel to drain.

Continue this process until all of the dough is balled up and fried.

It is best to start a sort of assembly line with some people rolling and some people frying.

After all of the balls are fried up place them in large bowels with tight fitting lids.

Heat a large bottle of honey (32oz.) in a saucepan until it is a thinner pourable consistency.

Pour honey over balls in bowels.

Let cool.

When cool, cover and let stand for 2 hours.  Flip the bowels over every 30 minutes

 

After this time you can distribute the balls into individual containers.

 

Add more honey on top if needed.  They should be coated enough to be sticky but not drippy.
Add sprinkles of choice.

 

Now try not to eat 1,000 of them!!!!!

 







Cookie Time

It's Cookie Time!

For those of you who were not a little girl in the 80s . . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJhchLeR1X0 
(If the link doesn't work type "cookie time troop Beverly hills" into your preferred search engine.)
Watch the video it is hilarious (you definitely need sound)!

Christmas time is prime for baking, especially cookies.
Every year my sister Mary (refer to links on the right) comes to our house to help me make cookies.  It is an all day affair.

We make about 7-8 different kinds.  Since that is too many to fully blog recipes for I will instead give you a play by play of the cookie day. (You can find any of the recipes online by searching the name of the cookie.)

Mary is very creative and artistic.  If you let her run away with herself one cookie can take her up to15 minutes.  So i gave her about 20 different cookie cutters and let her go to town on 2 of the savory selections: Almond Rosemary and Smoked Cheddar Cocktail Cookies.  Instead of using sprinkles and the usual decorations she used a multitude of spices and dried herbs.

Next we made a big favorite: Jingle Bell Bars. 
My Mom got this recipe out of the TV guide in 1986!  There was a special Muppet movie on TV, The Christmas Toy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099263/). 
During the commercial breaks they played promos for TV guide recipes from Kraft.  I was 5 and I love love loved it.  (uh oh now you can tell how old I am)
Over the years my sister's and i have watched that old VHS, with the movie and recipes, about 100000000 times. 
These bars were one of the commercials and it is always the favorite in my, and my Mom's, Christmas cookie box.

Next we made one of my personal favorites, a simple Thumbprint Cookie.
My parent's neighbor, Maria, used to make these and I was desperate to recreate their buttery goodness.  I finally found a satisfactory recipe and make variations every year.
This year we used apricot preserves for the thumbprint filling.

That is 4 so far.

Next up is the Florentines.  These are utterly delicious like almond lace. 
Beware though they are a little fussy. 
Especially when you put them in an oven that was turned OFF! Mary!
(It was actually my fault because she asked me if she should turn the oven off and i said yes . . . but i actually meant the oven timer that was beeping.  So silly!)
I didn't like the way they came out and said i was going to remake them. Mary told me I say that every year.

(uh oh no picture! sorry)

The final cookie Mary helped me with was a Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookie.
I was nervous because they were spicy but so far I have gotten a lot of compliments on these. 
They are basic chocolate crinkles but instead of powdered sugar they are rolled in cinnamon and Cayenne!

Later in the week I made one final cookie addition, Eggnog Cookies. 
Make sure to use a recipe that calls for actual eggnog, not one with just nutmeg in it, as that is lame. 
These came out delicious, almost cakeliek.  I added a rummed up boozy glaze ontop that I knew my coworkers would enjoy.

(uh oh again no picture! sorry)

So that is it.  Here was the final result I had to stuff into the freezer.

I made up little boxes for people at work.  I only had enough for 16 people though!  Each person got a green box with savory cookies and a red box with sweet cookies.  Makes me very popular for a day.

We also did a cookie off similar to the pie off.  I brought in the struffoli that my Mom and I make every year. 
That will be my next blog.  Hopefully I will get to it tomorrow.

Happy cookie-ing!