For Palm Sunday it’s a tradition in the Italian Riviera baking sweet donuts, called “canestrelli”, covered with colored sprinkles. People used to bring them to Church for having them blessed jointly with a branch of olive Tree.
They are donuts made of a very light leavened dough with very few fats and sugar as proper for the sacrifice days before Easter. You knead them very quickly, they nap most of the time whilst raising, you bake them in few minutes and then you can have fun decorating them with a lot of sprinkles.
This is another yummy recipe perfect for cooking with kids and having fun with them during these long quarantine days.
Ligurian Sunday Palm donuts
Ingredients
- 250 of 00 flour
- 5 g of brewer’s yeast
- 2 egg yolks
- 40 g of sugar
- 100 g of milk
- 35 g of butter at room temperature
- anise essence to taste
- sugar and colored baking sprinkles to decorate
Instructions
- Dissolve the brewer’s yeast in the warm milk.
- Pour the flour into a large bowl and add the milk, knead briefly. Then add the egg yolks, the butter in small flakes, the sugar and a few drops of anise essence. Continue to knead until a smooth and homogeneous dough is obtained.
- Let raise in a lightly floured and covered bowl for 1 hour.
- Divide the dough into 5 parts and form 5 balls. Cover with a damp cloth and let raise 15 minutes.
- Obtain a 15 cm long cord from each ball and form donuts with a very large hole (rising and then cooking it will become smaller).
- Let the donuts rise, covered, for about 2 hours or until doubled in volume.
- Bake at 180°C (350°F) and cook for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
- Prepare a sugar syrup by mixing a little water with a few tablespoons of sugar on the stove until a thick consistency is obtained. Brush the hot donuts with the sugar syrup and decorate with abundant colored baking sprinkles.
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