Cenci di Carnevale

A delicious recipe for the Shrove Tuesday cake par excellence

Simple and delicious, the desserts of the Italian Carnival are recipes that have centuries of history. As the Cenci, whose origin dates back to ancient Rome. Chiacchere calls them, as in Parma and in Basilicata, Frappe, as in Rome, or Galani, as in the Veneto, these thin and crispy strips or rectangles of fried dough that crazy young and old, are present throughout Italy, where they stay the cake Shrove Tuesday par excellence.

Here for you the recipe comes from the book of true Florentine cuisine of Paolo Petroni, Presidente dell’Accademia Italiana della Cucina:

ingredients:
300 grams of flour 00
50 grams of sugar
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 eggs
2 tablespoons Vin Santo
zest of one orange
a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda (optional)
a pinch of salt
cooking oil (preferably peanut oil)

Procedure:
1) Put the flour in a bowl-shaped crater in the middle you place the sugar, eggs, grated orange peel, oil, Vin Santo, salt and, if you put it, the bicarbonate.

2) Mix the ingredients for about ten minutes, then make a ball and let rest for half an hour.

3) With a rolling pin, roll out the dough on floured surface (adding a little milk if too hard), to reduce it to a thickness of about 2 mm.

4) With a knife (or with the appropriate wheel) cut into wide strips two fingers, then cut again diagonally every four fingers, so as to obtain the species of lozenges.

5) Fry in hot oil until they are golden brown, then put them to dry on a sheet of yellow paper.

6) Serve hot or cold, sprinkled with icing sugar and accompanied with Vin Santo.

Bon appetit!