Apple and raisin "frittelle"

My friend Mara asked if I could make her favourite Mardi Gras "frittelle",
so here you are with another fun recipe to celebrate "Carnevale".

Apple and raisin "frittelle"

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 glass milk
2 TBS sugar
350 g flour
1tsp baking powder
1 golden apple
100 g raisin
Half lemon

In a bowl mix flour with sugar, baking powder and salt.
Dice apple and cover with half lemon juice and add half lemon peel grated.
Soak raisin in water.
In another bowl beat eggs with milk, then add flour mixture little by little alternating with raisin and apple.
Fill in a frying pan with lots of vegetable oil (peanut or corn oil) and
warm it up.
When oil is warm fry small dollops of dough till they are golden on both sides
(use a small teaspoon to take dough and another one to help remove it
into the oil).
Transfer them on paper towel to absorb excess oil.
Dip them, one by one, in a bowl of sugar so they get well covered.

Serve them with a nice cup of tea!

The Carnival "Chiacchiere"

Carnival or Mardi' Gras will arrive soon and I'm ready to welcome it
happily making fragrant "Chiacchiere".
When I was young I knew this tipycal Carnival dessert with the name
of "Cioffe"(dialect for bow).
Stripes of sweet pasta dough were shaped like bows, fryed and sprinkled
with powder sugar.
They have different names in different regions (cenci, crostoli, frappe,etc.)
and shapes can be very different.
Here you find my recepe as published in my book "Memorie d'Infanzia".

Ingredients:

250 g flour
50 g sugar
25 g butter
2 eggs
1 TBS Martini Bianco
1tsp grated lemon peel
confectionary sugar
vegetable oil

Dispose flour on a wooden board and make a hole in the middle.
Add eggs, sugar and liquor and beat lightly with your hand.
Mix liquid with a little bit of flour then add soft butter and
mix well.
When you obtain a homogeneous dough, flatten it with a rolling pin.
Once very thin, cut dough in stripes 3 cm wide and 10 cm long,
then pinch each stripe in the middle to give it a bow shape.
Fry in warm oil (it is at right temperature when you put in a
small piece of pasta and small bubbles appear)till brown on both sides
(it happens very quickly).
Put them on a kitchen paper to absorb excess oil then transfer on a plate
and sprinkle with confectionary sugar.

Share them happily with friends!

BRAIDED BRIOCHE

As a challenge in my kitchen for 2013 I have decided to experiment with bread!!!
I will try to bake different kind of bread using a French book I bought long time ago and borrowing recepes from my Italian tradition.
The first bread I have baked is:

Treccia di pan briosce
a very soft bread similar to the challah bread from the Jewish tradition.

Ingredients:

for yeast base:

1/2 cup bread flour
1 tsp dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm milk




for dough:

5 eggs
3 cups bread flowr
2 TBS sugar
1 tsp salt
2 sticks (230 g) butter

for decoration:

1 egg
sesame seads or
granulated sugar


Prepare yeast base mixing all ingredients in a bowl, cover mixture and let
it rest at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Prepare dough beating 5 eggs, one at the time, in yeast base till smooth.
Add flour, sugar and salt and knead to mix well ingredients.
Soften butter and incorporate it to dough little by little.
When all butter is incorporated well knead dough for 5 minutes.
Put dough in a bowl, cover with cling paper and let it raise in the fridge
for about 2 hours.
Take dough out from fridge and cut in two pieces.
Knead one piece and then cut it in 3 parts.
Roll them in a rope shape, then braid them together.
Put braided bread on a baking tray, cover and let it raise for 1 hour and half.
Repeat same process with other piece.

Beat remaining egg with a TBL of water and brush loaves with it.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds or sugar and bake at 400 F for 30 minutes.

Once cooled slice it and serve with jam, Nutella or prosciutto.

GINGER COOKIES

After the holidays, there is a time when I start feeling nostalgic about festivities warmness and joy!
What do I do then?
I bake ginger cookies to sparkle my day again!
Ginger cookies are a bomb of heat because they contain lots of warming spices.
I make them even more powerful adding cocoa powder and chocolate......
....a delicious explotion of joy!
In this form they remind me of Mostaccioli, a sweet Christmas speciality
from my region in Italy.

Here it comes the recepe!

TRADITIONAL GINGER COOKIES

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ginger powder
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp garam masala or all spices
1/2 tsp cloves powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 pinch of black pepper
1/2 cup sugar (use brown one if you have it)
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 stick butter (120 g)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

In a bowl mix all dry ingredients, then add melted butter, oil and egg.
If it is too dry add a bit of water.
Mix all ingredients well, transfer on a wooden board and knead it.
Shape dough as a ball and transfer in a bowl and cover with cling paper.
Let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Turn on oven at 350 F.

With a rolling pin press dough to half inch thickness.
Cut with a ginger man shape.
Put cookies on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes.

Once cooled decorate cookies with icing.

GINGER COOKIES AFTER CHRISTMAS

Add to ingredients 2 tsp of cocoa powder.
Use same procedure except cutting and icing.
Cut in a round shape.

Once baked and cooled dip them in melted dark chocolate.
Put them in a tray on a parchment paper and let the chocolate
cool down.

Enjoy them with a nice cup of tea!!!