Chiacchiere - Italian Carnival Fritters

Chiacchiere are a fried Italian dessert made around Carnevale. They are light and crisp and topped with powdered sugar - so delicious!

Course Dessert

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 1

Resting Time 30

Total Time 2 30

Servings chiacchiere

Calories 74kcal

Place the flour on a flat surface, and make a well in the middle with a bowl. Add all the ingredients to the well except for the grappa and the frying oil.
With a fork, start whisking the ingredients in the well and gradually start bringing the flour in while you whisk. Continue until all the flour is brought in and the mixture is composed of large chunks.
Add the grappa to the mixture.
On a wood board (if you can - this makes it easier to knead), knead the dough for about 10 minutes until a smooth ball forms.
Wrap the ball in saran wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Remove the dough from the saran wrap and attach your pasta roller attachment to the power hub of your KitchenAid stand mixer. Or get ready to use your pasta machine.
Cut a piece of dough from the ball. You will get about 4-5 pieces from the dough. Flatten the piece of dough with your hands.
Lightly flour your hands. On speed 2 and setting 1 on the pasta roller, feed the piece of flattened dough through the roller. Once it has gone through, fold the dough into 3, rotate and feed through again. Rotating the dough is what makes it rectangular in shape. Repeat this process two more times until you've fed all sides of the dough through at setting 1.
Now change your roller setting to 2 and feed the dough through the roller once. Keep flouring your hands if dough is sticky.
Keep feeding the dough through on each roller setting (only once) until you've reaching setting 7. I found this was a good thickness for chiacchiere - the thinner the better! Set your dough sheet aside and repeat these steps for the remaining pieces of dough.
Note the dough sheets will be quite long so you may have to cut them in half or thirds if you're working on a small counter (like I am!). Grab a fluted pastry wheel and cut the large dough sheets into smaller rectangles. I like to make mine about 1.5-2 inches wide.
Cut a slit or two into each rectangle. Or make a slit in the middle of each rectangle and twist one end through the slit. Set aside. Repeat until all the dough is finished.

In a shallow pan, warm up the oil over medium heat. The amount of oil you use will vary depending on the size of your pan but there should be a few inches of oil in the pan.
Working in batches, drop the pieces of dough in the hot oil. They should almost immediately puff up and start to turn golden in color. Fry on one side and using two forks, flip to the other side. Depending on how how your oil is, it should take about 30 seconds per side.
Remove the chiacchiere from the pan and place on a paper towel-lined baking sheet. Repeat until all the pieces of dough are fried.
Dust with powdered sugar. Serve and enjoy!

When kneading, use a wooden board if you can. The dough will come together faster this way.
Instead of kneading by hand, you can use a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment to knead
Grappa is the traditional liqueur to use, but it can be substituted with marsala, rum or white wine
If you prefer to not use alcohol in baking, you can omit it. You may just have to use less flour if omitting the alcohol