Cooking with the crafters #6 - Carnival of Venice's Sweet Treats

[Versione Italiana]

At last we have another Cooking with the Crafters' episode! This week and the next, in honour of the Carnival of Venice, we show you two Venice traditional recipes, cooked (and tasted) for us by AliceCouture.

Photos by RelyDesign

I'm the greatest glutton, so I decided to show you the traditional sweets of Carnival of Venice: Frittelle and Galani. They are both sort of fritters / doughnuts sweets, made with almost the same ingredients but their shape and consistence vary. And they're both delicious!
This week and the next you can find here some brief historic outline about them and obvously, the recipes!

Frittelle (Venice's dialect: “Fritòe”)

The frittella (fritter) has its origins in the Serenissima lands, since 1600 A.D. 
In that period the “fritoleri” (people who made the fritters), were the only ones allowed to produce and sell these delicacies, and they set up an association made by 70 of them. To each of them was assigned a commercial area and furthermore they had a guarantee: only their heirs could succeed to them!
The ingredients used to make Frittelle haven't changed so far, and even now they are the most famous sweets for the carnival, not only in Venice but everywhere in the “Bel Paese”.

The Recipe

Ingredients:
20 gr. /0.7oz brewer's yeast
300 ml / 1.25 cup of milk
150 gr. / 5.30oz all purpose flour
3 eggs
35 gr. / 1.23oz sugar
180 gr./6.35oz margarin or lard
30 gr. / 1oz raisins
30 gr. / 1oz pine-kernels
1/2 coffee cup of grappa veneta
peanut oil to fry
confetioners' sugar
a pinch of salt

How to:
First of all you need to revive the raisins in tepid water.
Put the milk in a bow, add the yeast and 2 tablespoons of flour, whisking in the meanwhile to make it smooth.
Once the douch is smooth, cover the bowl with a cotton cloth and let it grow until it is doubled.
Now get another bowl and put the rest of the flour in it, add the dough, a whole egg and three yolks, mix everything and add the sugar, the lard or margarine (not directly from the fridge!) and a pinch of salt.
Mix everything again and add the rest of the ingredients: the pine-kernels, the raisins (well squeezed) and the grappa; mix again, cover with the cotton cloth and let it grow for another hour.
In a large pan warm the oil and when it's ready use a tablespoon to spoon the dough into the oil and make it fry till it's golden; then put in a dish covered with blotting paper.
Cover the frittelle with confetioners' sugar, and you're done! Buon appetito! :)

Next week's Carnival recipe: Galani.


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