Struffoli

Dough cut into pieces about 1 centimeter long is fried, each piece is coated in honey, and the pieces are heaped into a mound or a ring. Struffoli are a celebratory sweet of Campania, centered on Naples. With colored sugar sprinkles and candied fruit scattered over the golden pieces, they suit the Christmas table well. However, old records and neighboring regions show that neither the festive calendar nor the way the dough is handled is uniform.

Rolling the dough into thin ropes and cutting pieces of even size

The dough is made by combining flour, eggs, sugar, fat, and ingredients that add a citrus aroma, among others. Once it has been gathered into a single mass, small portions are taken from it and rolled out on the work surface into thin ropes. Each rope is cut into lengths of about 1 centimeter to make small pieces. Rather than shaping one large piece by hand, this method produces many pieces of even size by cutting up a long rope.

Even if the pieces have corners when cut, they puff up slightly in the oil and become rounded. Because the size of the pieces before frying determines the size of the finished pieces, it is important to keep the ropes the same thickness. Small pieces have a large surface area relative to their volume, so when several are eaten in one mouthful, the textures of their thin fried surfaces add up.

Binding loosely with honey and shaping into a mound or ring

Once the pieces are fried golden, they are drained of oil and added to honey warmed in a separate pan. They are mixed gently, without breaking them, so that the honey thinly coats each piece. Rather than being kept submerged in liquid honey, the pieces are coated on the surface so that they stick loosely to one another.

While still warm, they are transferred to a plate and shaped, then decorated with colored sugar sprinkles and candied citrus or other fruit. Small dots of red, green, white, and other colors are scattered over the brown honey and golden dough. Because the decorations are also small granules, the sweet as a whole looks like a pile of round dots, large and small.

Proportions and personal touches preserved in a family’s handwritten recipe

There is also more than one recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method) for the sweet coating. In one method, sugar and a little water are added to honey and brought to a boil, and the fried pieces are coated in it. On the other hand, in the recipe that Annito Abate reconstructed from his family’s handwritten notes, the honey is warmed and used as is, and adding sugar and water is described as a separate method. The sweet coating, too, varies in proportions in these ways.

The paper Abate found was his grandmother’s recipe as written down by his mother, and it still bore corrections added by the cooks. With his mother’s advice, he recorded every step, from resting the dough, cutting the ropes, and frying in small batches to binding the pieces with honey. In addition to the proportions of eggs, fat, and citrus, the size of the pieces and the amount of honey also reflect the personal touches of generations of cooks.

Two theories: the round shape and the motion of rubbing the dough

One theory links the name to the ancient Greek strongylos (“round”). Another links it to the motion of rubbing the dough against the work surface while rolling it out. The resemblance to ancient Greek is a candidate etymology, and it is not known whether the present-day Neapolitan recipe came directly from Greece. The two theories focus, respectively, on the shape of the round pieces and on the motion of rolling the dough into ropes.

17th-century menus and gifts from nuns

The Naples cultural heritage authority cites the menus of the 17th-century cook Crisci and descriptions in Latini’s cookbook from the end of the same century. What Crisci included was not limited to Christmas menus. The occasions on which it was eaten also differed from today.

The same authority also describes the custom of nuns giving it to their noble patrons at Christmas. Today it is still a sweet associated with both Christmas and Carnival. Small pieces of fried dough piled high have spread to festive occasions, centered on the family table at the end of the year. In neighboring Molise, cicerchiata, small balls likewise bound with honey, is presented as a Christmas sweet. Although they are similar in appearance and preparation, they are called by different names in each region and eaten at festivities.

A grooved fried sweet made in Puglia

Similar sweets in southern Italy are not necessarily the same balls under another name. The University of Bari’s catalog of traditional Apulian food products describes purceddhruzzi from the province of Lecce. In the recipe it gives, flour is combined with olive oil, salt, and warmed dry white wine, and no eggs are used. Ropes of dough are cut into short pieces, pressed against a grooved board or a fork to mark ridges, and then fried. They are coated in warmed honey and decorated with pine nuts, almonds, cinnamon, and so on. They differ from struffoli, which are cut into round pieces, in the fat and liquid used and in how the surface is made.

An Andalusian sweet made by breaking fried dough and pressing it together

Spain also has comparable sweets. For the piñonate that Ángeles, a cook from Andalusia, demonstrated on a television program, eggs, oil, aguardiente, and flour are kneaded, shaped like thick noodles, fried, and broken into small pieces while hot. Because the pieces are coated in honey and spices and pressed into a square wooden mold, the finish differs from sweets made by heaping individual round pieces. Both combine honey with fried flour dough, but whether the sweet spread from Spain to Naples is not known.

In this way, similar ingredients give rise to short grooved pieces, broken pieces pressed together, and round pieces heaped into a mound. The small size of struffoli comes from the process of cutting even pieces from a rope and frying them as individual pieces, and each piece keeps its crisp bite even inside the honey coating.

Glossary