Chiacchiere (Italian carnival pastries)
These delicate, crisp gently sweet pastries are a carnival favorite, and perfect for sharing.
Servings: 4 or more (makes around 60 pieces)
Calories: 439kcal
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Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour plain flour
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest from approx ½ lemon
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter softened
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon marsala or rum, vin santo, brandy
- 1 cup vegetable oil or other neutral oil for cooking, may need more/less and will have some left after cooking
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar icing sugar, may need more/less
Instructions
- Place the flour, sugar, salt and lemon zest in the food processor and pulse a couple times to mix. (You can optionally also add a pinch of baking soda/bicarbonate of soda to give slightly more puffed out pastries). Add the egg, softened butter, vanilla and marsala/rum/brandy and blend/pulse so everything comes together into large crumbs. Alternatively, you can mix by hand or with a stand mixer.
- Bring the dough together into a ball and knead for a couple minutes then wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap/cling film and leave to rest for around 30 minutes.
- After the rest time, take roughly half of the dough (or a little less) and flatten it slightly to let you roll it through a pasta machine. Roll a couple times from the widest setting up to around 7 - 8, dusting with flour as needed so the dough is not sticky. You are looking to get the dough very thin and starting to be see-through. If needed, cut the dough in half if it gets too long to make it easier to work with. You can also roll by hand, just roll so you can start to see colors/shapes through the dough eg from a piece of paper placed underneath.
- Once thin enough, use a pastry cutter or ravioli cutter with a fluted edge to cut rectangles of dough with a slit in the middle (see pictures above). The exact size is not that important but around 4 inches long (10cm) by around 1.5in (4cm) wide works well. Repeat with the rest of the dough so you have all ready before cooking.
- Warm the oil for cooking in a small to medium, relatively deep skillet/frying pan or eg Dutch oven over a medium high heat. You want to have a layer of oil in the pan, at least ½ inch (1.5cm) deep but a little more can be good. Prepare some paper towel on a baking sheet ready for draining after cooking.
- Test the oil is hot enough with one piece of dough - you should get plenty of bubbles around it and it should brown on the edges in around 30 seconds. Assuming it does, you can start cooking a few at a time, if not let the oil get hotter first. Cook the pastries in batches, only a small number at a time, until starting to brown on the edges, around 30 seconds, then flip over with tongs or a metal strainer to cook on the other side. Remove from the oil once golden and drain off excess oil by placing on the paper towel. Repeat with other pieces of dough until all cooked.
- Once the pastries have drained and cooled, dust with powdered sugar/icing sugar, using a fine sieve, and serve. You can store any extras in a sealed container at room temperature.
Video
Notes
The servings can be many more than suggested as this makes a lot of pieces - it assumes a generous snack per person. Nutritional info is also always approximate, but here even more so due to the amount of oil absorbed which can vary greatly (calculation assumes 4 portions and half the oil absorbed).
Nutrition
Calories: 439kcal | Carbohydrates: 33g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 32g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 16g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 49mg | Sodium: 27mg | Potassium: 55mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 9g | Vitamin A: 148IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 13mg | Iron: 2mg
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