Zeppole di San Giuseppe are a staple pastry in Italy on March 19 for the feast of Saint Joseph. A fried fritter is topped with luscious pastry cream and finished off with amarena cherries. Delicious!
San Giuseppe, or the feast of Saint Joseph, is celebrated every year on March 19. In Italy, feast days are very popular and celebrate certain saints. If you happen to have a saint's name, you will be congratulated with a "buon onomastico," meaning "happy feast day" and may get to celebrate with some pastries or cake.
Some feast days are more popular and more prominent in Italy than others, and San Giuseppe is definitely one one of the more popular feast days in Italy. It also happens to be Father's Day in Italy. And if you think about it, this makes sense. With a majority of the country identifying with Catholicism, Father's Day coincides with the feast of Saint Joseph (Jesus's father).
Every year around the time of the feast of San Giuseppe, these zeppole di San Giuseppe make an appearance all over the country. They're sold in bakeries, and when you see them popping up, you know the feast of Saint Joseph is just around the corner.
Seasonal desserts play a big role in Italy, meaning that certain desserts only show up at certain times of the year. Another example of seasonal desserts include pastiera napoletana for Easter and chiacchiere - Italian carnival fritters.
Baking vs. frying
I've tried both versions of zeppole - baked and fried and can say that I personally like the fried version better. It's richer, and has a more complex flavour than the baked version. You can definitely taste a difference between the two.
I only make this dessert once a year and don't fry food often, so I say, indulge and go with the more flavorful version - the fried one!
How to make them
Start by making the pastry cream
Now it's time to make the zeppole!
Recipe
Zeppole di San Giuseppe
Ingredients
For the zeppole:
- 4 eggs large
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 cup 00 flour
- 1 cup water
For the pastry cream:
- 600 mL whole milk
- 6 egg yolks large
- 150 grams sugar
- 50 grams corn starch
- 1 vanilla bean can substitute with 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 lemon peel peeled into large pieces
To fry the zeppole and finish them off:
- 1 litre sunflower oil or peanut oil
- 6-12 amarene (Italian sour cherries in syrup)
- powdered sugar
Instructions
Make the pastry cream:
- Deseed the vanilla bean and set the seeds aside.
- In a sauce pan, warm up the milk, deseeded vanilla bean, vanilla bean seeds, and large pieces of lemon peel. Do not let it come to a boil. When steam starts to emit from the pan (just before boiling point), turn off the heat. Remove the vanilla bean and lemon zest. Vanilla bean can be discarded but keep the lemon peel.
- Using a colander, strain the milk mixture, so that any extra bits of the vanilla bean (other than the seeds) can be filtered out.
- In a bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks with a fork. Add the sugar and whisk with a hand mixer until light and creamy, a few minutes.. Add the corn starch to the bowl, and mix with the hand mixer off at first (or else it will go everywhere!). Once mixed by hand, turn on the hand mixer and beat until corn starch is well incorporated.
- Add a bit of the milk mixture to the egg mixture to loosen it up. Mix with the hand mixer.
- Keep adding the milk to the eggs and mixing with the hand mixer until incorporated. The mixture should be foamy.
- Pour the mixture back into the sauce pan, along with the lemon peel. Turn the heat to medium-low and whisk the mixture until a cream-like consistency forms, about 10 minutes. Remove the lemon peel.
- Add the cream to a shallow dish and cover it with saran wrap, ensuring that the saran wrap touches the cream. This will ensure no bubbles form on the cream.
- Let the cream cool at room temperature, then transfer it to the fridge.
Make the zeppole (fritters):
- Add the water, butter and salt to a saucepan.
- Turn the heat on to medium, and stir the ingredients with a wooden spoon so everything melts together.
- Once the mixture comes to a soft boil, add the flour, and continue mixing with the spoon.
- The mixture should start to form a ball. At this point, turn off the heat and add the mixture to a bowl.
- While the mixture is cooling, beat the eggs.
- Add ⅓ of the beaten eggs to the flour mixture, and with a hand mixer, mix the two together. Keep adding the eggs, slowly, and mixing, about 3-4 minutes.
- In the end, the mixture should be smooth and creamy (similar to the consistency of the pastry cream), but not too dense. If it seems too dense, beat a fifth egg and add it to the mixture. Add it to a piping bag fitted with a star tip (12mm).
- On a piece of parchment paper, pipe circles with two layers that are 5-6 cm in diameter.
- Cut a square of parchment paper around each circle.
Fry the zeppole:
- In a saucepan, bring the oil to a boil, reaching 165°C, measuring the temperature with a thermometer (and trying not to let it go higher).
- Once the oil has reached temperature, add a zeppola to the oil (complete with parmchment paper), with the parchment paper facing up. After a few seconds, the parchment paper will detach from the zeppola. Remove the parchment paper with a fork.
- Continue frying the zeppola for 5-8 minutes, turning once, until golden brown.
- Remove the zeppola from the oil and place on a paper towel lined plate so excess oil is absorbed. Repeat for all the zeppole.
Finish the zeppole
- Dust the zeppole with powdered sugar.
- Remove pastry cream from the fridge, and if it has hardened, use a hand mixer to soften it up and bring it to a cream-like consistency again.
- Add pastry cream to a piping bag fitted with a star attachment.
- Pipe the zeppole with pastry cream, and top with an amarena (or2!)
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
- Be sure to use 00 flour to make the zeppole - it's better for frying.
- All purpose flour can be used to make the zeppole but I find when using AP flour, the zeppole don't hold their shape as well as using 00 flour.
- When piping the zeppole on to the parchment paper, don't make them bigger than 5-6cm in circumference. they will expand when frying, so anything bigger than this size will be too big.
- To help guide you in piping the zeppole to the right size, make small marks on the parchment paper with a pen to mark the circumfrence
- It's a good idea to use a deep-fry and candy thermometer when frying the zeppole. Try to keep the oil at a consistent 165°C. If you have the oil too hot, the zeppole will cook too quickly and the inside won't cook properly.
- The zeppole should fry for 5-8 minutes. If it's taking less than this, your oil is too hot. The longer they take to fry, the better. I find they hold their shape better if they take longer to fry.
- The traditional topper to these zeppole is an amarena which is a sour cherry in syrup. I recommend using amarene if you can find them, but a marschino cherry, or even nutella would make a good topper.
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