Struffoli are small balls of fried dough and candied peel drenched in honey and found on every restaurant table, home and many shops in Naples around Christmas. Golden, sticky and sweet, the smell of frying struffoli wll make every Neapolitan long for home around this time of the year. Symbolizing abundance and made for good luck, this food of celebration was originally made by nuns to give to the aristocracy at Christmas as thanks for everything they had done for charity. In Rome a similar dessert is made and typically stuffed with candied fruit and chopped almonds – here they are called cicerchiata

and are descendents of the ancient Roman frictilla that were made around Carnival time in Rome. The word comes from the Greek word strongulos which means rounded but I have not found any Greek recipe that makes them as they do in Naples. The secret is to make the balls as small as possible (without making peas) so that they are drenched in honey on all sides, yet soft and sublime inside.  So for lovers of the really sweet:

STRUFFOLI

Ingredient

• 400 g plain flour
• 250 g caster sugar
• 1 lemon, zest only
• 1 orange, zest only
• 250 g honey
• 150 candied orange and citron plus additional for decoration purposes
• A little angelica and halved glacé cherries for decoration
• 30 g butter, cut into tiny cubes
• 3 large eggs plus 3 additional yolks
• 1 tablespoon brandy
• vegetable oil for deep frying
• 1 handful of hundreds and thousands for decoration
• 1 pinch salt

Method

• Use a metal spatula to combine flour, butter, eggs, brandy, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, salt and the lemon & orange zest.
• Mix well until the dough is glossy and refrigerate for an hour and a half, after which you knead in the candied peel and then roll out the dough, cut it into very thin strips and form little balls.  Traditionally the peel is fried with the struffoli but I prefer doing it this way and I hope that the Neapolitans will forgive me for this – I found it less messy.
• Heat the oil in a deep fryer over medium heat (not hot) and deep-fry the struffoli until they are golden, remove and drain.
• Make sure that they sizzle immediately otherwise you will not get crisp balls.
• Now put the honey and sugar into a separate large saucepan with about 65 ml water, boil until the foam that will form on top has disappeared and the honey has become an amber colour.
• Stir in the struffoli gently until they are completely coated with the honey – usually by this time the honey has been almost used up.
• Remove the struffoli with a wooden spoon, pile onto a large serving dish and sprinkle with the angelic, the glacé cherries and decorate with hundreds and thousands (or the dragees if you choose to).
• Enjoy by breaking off and enjoying with really strong Neapolitan coffee.