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Thread Number: 31620
Zeppole - Make Your Own Dough or Store Bought? |
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Post# 477004 11/22/2010 at 18:13 (4,900 days old) by Launderess  (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Well after getting Thanksgiving out of the way will turn to thinking about Christmas baking.
Have alwyas love zeppole (those wonderful Italian fried pasteries), and am considering whipping up a batch or two. It seems every Italian home has their own way, and there are more recipes than grains of sand on a beach. So am asking for tips/suggestions. Does anyone simply purchase the ready made dough from the supermarket? It seems a simple enough pate a chox (puff pastry) dough, though others seem to be more of a chewy doughnut variety. The frying part seems no problem! *LOL* | ||
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| Post# 477008 , Reply# 1 11/22/2010 at 18:48 (4,900 days old) by qsd-dan (West) | ||
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Post# 477167 , Reply# 5 11/23/2010 at 22:41 (4,899 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Favorit About That "True Beer Yeast"
On these shores many home and commercial bakers use packets of
"instant" yeast, and or the brick version. Indeed SAF amoung a few other brands sold here advertise their "quick" yeast for making breads, brioches, and other doughs by hand, machine mixer or bread machine. When making pizza and other doughs such as those called for in brioche, many of us simply place the dough in the fridge after the first or second knead/rise and allow it to remain overnight/several hours. Since yeast actitity decreases with lower temperatures chilling does to things. One, it slows down the rising, and this (two) allows a nice rich flavour to develop. Depending upon how often one bakes, those bricks of "fresh" yeast may totally die before used up. This is why many home bakers prefer the dry yeast packets, which last long beyond their stamped shelf life if properly stored. Proofing yeast also adds a step many home bakers either do not learn properly and or want to skip a step to speed things along. Only time I proof a packet of yeast is one is concerned if it is still "alive". | ||
| Post# 477193 , Reply# 7 11/24/2010 at 03:34 (4,899 days old) by dj-gabriele () | ||
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Oh... and as you can see zeppole are made more or less with choux dough, not at all with "pizza" or "bread" dough! So no yeast in it!!!! | ||
| Post# 477194 , Reply# 8 11/24/2010 at 04:12 (4,899 days old) by angus (Fairfield, CT.) | ||
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My guess is that the zeppole using choux dough became pizza dough here in the states as an adaptation of Italian Americans in their new homeland. | ||
| Post# 477196 , Reply# 9 11/24/2010 at 04:42 (4,898 days old) by Maytagbear (N.E. Ohio) | ||
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favorit- So delighted that I gave you amusement. I was replying IN CONTEXT, as one USA person replying to another USA person. Lawrence(real name, profile filled out)/Maytagbear | ||
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Post# 477198 , Reply# 10 11/24/2010 at 05:09 (4,898 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Am Not Trying To Start WWIII Here! *LOL*
However as stated in my OP, most every Italian-American household has their own *way* of making zeppole.
However there seems to be two common methods on these shores, one is the pate a choux, and the other is basically pizza dough. Indeed when at the supermarket last night picking up some pie shells spied several different bags of ready made pizza dough. Each bag was clearly labeled that the contents can be used for "pizza, calzone, zeppole, ....". This variation fits into the different ways one sees zeppole served here in the states. One is the basic fried dough dusted with powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar or honey sold at most every Italian-American street fair. The other is the more fancy puff pastry version filled with cream, custard or whatever else including savory meats. The latter two I believe are called "St. Joseph Cakes" and served on the saint's feast day. Making pate a choux is a bit more difficult than pizza dough, especially if one does not know how to or simply skips the tempering step when adding eggs. In the recipe above the we are told to allow the dough to cool before adding the eggs, however tempering removes this waiting step and is designed to prevent the heat from the dough or whatever from cooking the eggs as they are added. | ||
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Post# 477199 , Reply# 11 11/24/2010 at 05:36 (4,898 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains) |
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Wow - Dahlinks!
I am lucky enough to:
1) Have had a real Italian grandmother and aunts. Lots of realItalian aunts. Who bake. Like my grandmother. 2) Live a very tiny drive from Italy. Eat your hearts out! 3) Have real Italian friends right here who cook. 4) Have many Italian-American friends in the US. And you know what? Some use pâte à choux or very close. Some use pizza dough. AND some of the pâte à choux bakers are Italian-American WHILE some of the pizza dough users are outstanding bakers and cooks who are real Italians. In Italy. This is as pointless and stupid an argument as defining THE one and only sugo. Or demanding that it "ain't Italiano without the oregan-o". Sheesh. The two different doughs (and all the variations inbetween) offer us not LESS but MORE variations on one of the nicest things about Advent. Favorit, Americans are pretty much stuck with "instant" yeast. By our standards (our means Northern Italy through Berlin) even "normal rise" American yeast would be super-ultra-rapid rise yeast. This is why they have so many more "refrigerator" yeast recipies than we do. Honestly, dah-links, can we just focus on the absolutely best cuisine in the world - Italian - and not worry about regional variations? I mean, like, sheesh. | ||
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Post# 477209 , Reply# 12 11/24/2010 at 08:21 (4,898 days old) by vacbear58 (Sutton In Ashfield, East Midlands, UK) |
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Maybe other places too
Reading this thread, I was struck by the apparant similarity of Zeppole (which to be honest, I had never heard of) with Churros - a Mexican/Spanish confection that Nigella Lawson featured on here show last week - it is episode 8 of "Nigella Kitchen", which is currently on a first run here - its not up on youtube yet as far as I can see.
Anyway, the dough is pretty plain to I guess more towards pizza than choux and no yeast either, with a very rich chocolate dipping sauce. Here is a link to the recipe on the BBC website Al CLICK HERE TO GO TO vacbear58's LINK | ||
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Post# 477254 , Reply# 14 11/24/2010 at 12:24 (4,898 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains) |
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dj-gabriele, very close to pettule indeed. | ||
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Post# 477264 , Reply# 15 11/24/2010 at 13:04 (4,898 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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DJ-Gabriele
Yes, now you've got it! *LOL*
Link below gives some recipes for "Zeppole", but as stated often in this thread, you will see there are so many variations. Am going to go out on a limb and say *where* one or one's family is from in Italy may influence how "zeppole" are made. I mean no offense, but frying up pizza dough is a bit less expensive than going the eggs, custard/cream/meat and so forth filling route. Thus more likely to have been made more often, even when times were "hard". Panthera: There are many types of yeast available in the United States, if one chooses to seek them out. Some home bakers I know also keep and feed their own sourdough starter. However again as stated above, for the average housewife or someone who bakes perhaps just several times a year, large portions of "active" yeast is really a waste. It most certianly will die off before ever being finished. CLICK HERE TO GO TO Launderess's LINK | ||
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Post# 477322 , Reply# 17 11/24/2010 at 16:48 (4,898 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains) |
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Interested! dj-gabriele, very!
Please do post the recipe! Thanks.
Laundress, maybe in NYC, but out in the boondocks, all we get is that ultra-quick, no taste, super gassy stuff. If I were a better baker, I would lay on my own sour dough. When you consider that until fairly recently the dialects in many neighboring villages in Italy were mutually unintelligible, and given that the Italian cuisine is the world's very best and most diverse, it is no wonder we all have different names for things. | ||
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Post# 477429 , Reply# 19 11/25/2010 at 03:56 (4,898 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains) |
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Paulo,
That was brilliant and I thank you.
One of the joys of eating in Italy (you travel to Germany or England, you eat your way through Italy) is the fact that there is no standard Italian recipe for anything. Well, there are standards of course and my Italian-American relations are always shocked, shocked I tell you to discover that the primary Italian recipe for lunch these days is: 1)Open the freezer 2)Open the microwave 3)Eat in front of the TV But that's irrelevant. Your yeast tips are very useful, I am going to cut and paste this into my recipe file. And yes, Lawrence was right. Goodness, I have three totally different pizzeli recipes from three different Italian (real, not the Italian-American kind) aunts... Back to pizza, if nobody minds. I hate it, generally speaking. Only decent pizza I ever had in my life was in Terracina. Salt-free dough, barely worked, bottom covered in a very fruity olive oil, rosmary scattered on top, potatoes sliced thin (3mm) over that, more olive oil, into the oven and out. Little street vendor's cart. The neat thing about Latium is, it can be 42°C in the early afternoon and then you need nordic clothing to take a walk at ten in the evening. No wonder Southern Italians do warm drinks so well. It's a funny twist of fate that the Italian equivalent of fast food has become the symbol of the greatest cuisine on the planet. | ||
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Post# 477504 , Reply# 21 11/25/2010 at 14:46 (4,897 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains) |
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Gabriele,
A great looking recipe, thanks!
Here's a list of a few good restaurants Mangostin, Tantris, Schubeck's, Weisses Brauhaus I know personally and they are good - if expensive. You'll have to see whether they are open around Christmas. Weisses Brauhaus is one of my parent's favorites in all of Germany and Austria. I like them because, as a vegetarian, I can eat well there while my German friends can eat pork with butter and salt and did I mention the pork? Mangostin is, unfortunately, rather popular right now. There is a very good Indian - Swagat - directly on Prinzregentenplatz which is always packed full but has excellent Indian food. As far as Imbißbüden...hmm, Rischart's stands at many big train stations are good. They won't be open at Christmas, but the Lebensmittelpassage from Hertie which you get to directly from the Hauptbahnhofschallterhalle is pretty decent. Viktualienmarkt München (right off of Marienplatz) has several tens of booths with outstanding stand-up food, including exotic, traditional Bavarian (the real stuff, not the "gut bürgerliche Küche trash) and a really quite decent Nordsee. Probably all closed on the 25th! Sorry! Dallmeier is over-rated, as is Kafer. Hope that helps. Best to buy stuff a few days ahead as things from the afternoon of the 24th through the 26th are pretty dead in Germany. CLICK HERE TO GO TO panthera's LINK | ||
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Post# 989980 , Reply# 22 4/8/2018 at 21:35 (2,206 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI) |
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Just Sauce & Cheese, Please...
Here is the SECOND of a Roll of Pizza Dough that made an ACTUAL PIZZA:
(Don't ask what happened to the first roll--which Laura is actually rolling, in an attempt to save it--it unfortunately deformed itself into some breadsticks, so I rushed out to buy another one!) -- Dave | ||
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Post# 989991 , Reply# 23 4/8/2018 at 23:13 (2,206 days old) by robbinsandmyers (Conn) |
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Im very fortunate to have grown up behind DiSorbos Bakery in Hamden. Their pastry was shown in The Sopranos movie its that good. In fact it blows away the Italian pastry from the old institutions in New Haven. This area seems to be pizza and Italian pastry ground zero. We have the best pizza in the country and locals here are pretty much pizza snobs including myself. I have a 16" square pizza stone and love making my own thin crust pizza. I use King Arthur flour but Im lazy and buy dough made in NY most of the time because I dont have freezer space to store it after I make a batch. I've recently discovered a 6 lb can of 7/11 ground California plum tomatoes for $5.00 is perfect for my needs all around. Its not too sweet and has body to it and just needs a tiny bit of salt and seasoning and 15 mins low simmer to be ready for pizza or pasta. Its a steal compared to small cans at $4.50. I get it at the local food terminal plaza.
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| Post# 990226 , Reply# 24 4/10/2018 at 16:13 (2,204 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c ) | ||
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Never had Zeppoli But I normally make everything from scratch. | ||
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