dalla cucina di Joanna Lucarino

My memories of the holidays center around family and food. We all have our favorite traditional treats with mine being honey-coated little balls of deep-fried pastry which we call la cicerchiata.
My family serves this dessert shaped into a wreath and decorated with multi-colored candy sprinkles at Christmastime. In the Abruzzo-Molise regions we call it cicerchiata, named for their resemblance to an ancient legume similar to chickpeas or ceci. In Naples it is known as struffoli. Many will serve this for Carnevale (Mardi Gras).
My older sisters told us younger siblings that it was ceci beans dipped in honey. Gross! Needless to say, we all stayed away from it, that is until we were old enough to realize it was pastry dough and the best dessert ever. Now we can’t stop eating it, prying each sweet ball of dough from the ring. We continue the tradition of making la cicerchiata wreaths every Christmas as the centerpiece of our dessert, coffee and liqueur table. From my family to yours: Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuova 2024! 

Ingredients for the Dough:

4 Extra large eggs, beaten
4 T. Vegetable oil
2-4 T. Sugar (to your liking)
2 tsp. Vanilla, lemon, or a liqueur
2 tsp. Baking powder
Zest of one organic lemon
3-4 C. Unbleached flour (as needed)

Ingredients for the Coating:

1 ½ C. High quality honey
½ C. White sugar

Extra Ingredient: 

Multi-colored candy sprinkles

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients for the pastry dough in a large bowl, add flour as needed to form a sticky dough, then turn out onto a floured board, knead for approximately 8 minutes until it forms a smooth ball, no longer sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes. Cut the dough into 4 parts. Cover three parts under a bowl while you work one part by rolling it into a long, thin rope, the thickness of a pencil. Cut that into small, uniform pieces, not more than ½ inch wide since they will expand when fried. Place the balls onto a floured tray. Repeat with the remaining 3 parts of dough. In a deep fry pan or saucepan, heat around 3-4 inches of vegetable oil. The oil is ready when you drop a dough ball in and it pops up and sizzles. Now you can start to fry the balls in batches, not overcrowding the pan, stirring to keep them apart. Once they turn a light golden color you will use a slotted spoon to quickly remove and drain them onto a paper towel-lined tray. In a large, deep saucepan or stock pot, combine the honey and sugar over medium heat until it becomes a bubbly liquid. Fold in all the fried dough balls and stir until they are well-coated with the honey mixture.

Immediately turn out onto an oiled plate large enough to form the wreath. Hint: we have found it won’t stick to wax paper (like the type used in cereal boxes)! We had to get creative because the honey-sugar mixture hardens as it cools. Add your sprinkles immediately upon forming the ring. We typically cut the wreath into wedges to serve. We also put scoops of them into individual cupcake liners. This cuts down on the temptation to just pick at the wreath with your fingers!

Buon Appetito!