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In Italy March 19th is St. Joseph day and it is our Father’s day. We celebrate this occasion – since ever – cooking fritters and in particular sweet St. Joseph fritters.

Actually here in the Italian Riviera we have a proper traditional St. Joseph lunch, made up of guess what? All fritters! Not very light one, but nobody complains! In particular we use to prepare:

• “frisceu“: a leavened bread dough made with different veggies inside (such as finely chopped spring onions, marjoram, lettuche) scooped and deep fried.
• “cuculli” , small round fritters made with a chickpea flour batter.
• “crocchette di patata“, potato fritters , made with smashed potatoes, eggs, parmesan cheese and majoram;
• “crocchette di riso“, rice fritters, kinda Sicilian arancini made with white rice and filled with cheese; and
• “frisceu dosci“, sweet fritters. Usually there are round fritters with raisin or diced apples inside, always generously sprinkled with sugar.

The recipe of sweet fritters I want to share is very old, not so common nowadays, but really good and very nice looking!

This is a friend’s of mine grandma’s recipe. Nonna Lina was a great home cook. As many ladies who survived the Second World War she was used to cook for all the family, twice a day, always with a smile printed on her face and never complaining about the hardships of life.

I think we all have, in these difficult days, to remember our grandmas, put a feet in their – less comfortable than ours – shoes, roll up our leaves and keep on smiling despite this damned virus.

I have prepared a video of this recipe, hope you will enjoy it!

Here the recipe. Let’s celebrate our dads guys and let’s stick together!

#andràtuttobene.

St. Joseph sweet fritters

Ingredients

• 300 g of flour
• 30 g of soft butter
• 10 g of brewer’s yeast (3 g of instant yeast)
• 200 g of milk
• 200 g of granulated sugar
• peanut oil for frying

Instructions

• Dissolve the brewer’s yeast in a little milk taken from the total. Pour the flour on the work table, make a crater in the center and add the soft butter, the yeast dissolved in the milk and knead. Gradually add the milk until incorporating all the flour and obtaining a soft and smooth dough. You can also make the dough using the mixer.
• Roll out the dough with a rolling pin on a well-floured surface until you get a thickness of about ½ cm. Cover with a cloth or plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.
• Put a pan plenty of oil for frying on the fire.
• Sprinkle the surface of the pasta with plenty of granulated sugar, then roll it very gently, taking care not to crush the roll. Cut the roll into slices the thickness of a finger to obtain many swivels. If the outer flap of the swivel should open “glue” it with a little water.
• Fry the swivels in the oil, turning them once so that both surfaces are golden brown. The oil does not have to be very hot to allow the fritters to cook inside before the surface gets too colored.
• Dry them on paper towel and sprinkle them immediately with plenty of sugar.
• Serve them still hot.