Chocolate pignoli cookies

I’m not a man who messes with tradition. And yet here we are, fiddling with one of the most traditional recipes of all, the pignoli cookie.

Blame the global pandemic.

I do.

See, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately. (You are familiar with this concept, no?) After making a couple batches of my traditional pignoli cookie recipe, well, I just had to start messing around.

And so here you go, a chocolate version.

Hey, new traditions have gotta start somewhere.

Chocolate Pignoli Cookies Recipe

Makes about a dozen cookies  

8 ounces almond paste (do not us tubes; use either canned or foil wrapped)

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

3 tbsp flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 extra large egg white

1 tsp vanilla extract

8 oz raw pignoli (pine nuts)  

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

In a food processor, crumble the almond paste, then add the sugars, flour and cocoa and mix until fine. 

Add the egg white and vanilla and mix until dough forms.

Empty the pignoli into a bowl. Scoop out small amounts of the dough (wet hands help and so I keep a bowl filled with water on hand), then roll in pignoli until coated. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes. Rotate the sheet and bake another 10 minutes or so.

Allow to cool, give a light dusting of confectioners sugar and serve.

Ginny’s Thanksgiving pie

When a 98-year-old woman texts you her mother’s recipe for a cherished holiday pie from her childhood — days before Thanksgiving, it is worth noting — well, my mamma didn’t raise no dummy.

Also worth mentioning is the woman’s place in my life. She is my wife’s mother. Her name is Virginia. But you can call her Ginny.

Ginny is a New Englander to the core. The place where she lives today, just outside of Boston, is but a few miles from where she was born and raised.

New Englanders and New Yorkers, particularly Italian-American New Yorkers like myself, are not always, shall we say, simpatico in matters of food cravings. I learned this long ago, and so was not surprised that Ginny’s pie recipe featured a main ingredient unlike any that my kind would expect on a holiday dessert tray.

It’s a blue hubbard squash.

And here’s what it looks like inside.

Lucky for Ginny that her son-in-law doesn’t live in Brooklyn anymore; he lives in Maine, where the nearby farms are positively lousy with these things!

Despite a strong urge to fiddle with the recipe (I am not a recipe follower by nature) I followed this one to the letter. I cooked some of the filling separately to see what I’d gotten myself into and it tasted an awful lot like a pumpkin pie, both to me and to Ginny’s daughter.

Later on today we’ll be driving the pie down to Ginny’s.

She is not a woman without strong opinions and so odds are good that a Comment might be forthcoming.

Pray for me.

And Happy Thanksgiving.

Blue Hubbard Squash Pie

One pie crust. (I used Beth Queen of Bakers’ recipe.)

1 1/2 cups blue hubbard squash, roasted and mashed

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon cloves

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups evaporated milk

1 tablespoon melted butter

Mix together the dry ingredients, then add in the squash and mix thoroughly. Add the beaten eggs, milk, and butter and mix.

Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 45 minutes or so.

Kalamata olive bread

I promise not to bore you. Fact, let me get straight to the point and move along. This is basically round two of the bread-making exercise that I posted here a few weeks back. Here is the link to that recipe, along with full instructions.

All I have done is turn the original Jim Lahey recipe into an olive bread. A really good olive bread, too.

Below is the original recipe, with olives added (in bold red lettering) at the point where they should be mixed into the dough. Again, the original link that I mentioned above offers step-by-step instruction, so refer to that and then simply add the olives.

That’s about it.

Good luck.

 

JIM LAHEY’S NO-KNEAD BREAD RECIPE

WITH OLIVES…WITH OLIVES…WITH OLIVES…

Ingredients

3 cups (400 grams) bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons (8 grams) table salt

1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) instant or other active dry yeast

1 1/3 cups (300 grams) cool water (55 to 65 degrees F)

1 cup loosely chopped Kalamata olives (drained of brine)

Wheat bran, cornmeal, or additional flour, for dusting

Equipment

A 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-quart heavy pot

Preparation

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the water AND OLIVES, using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds. Make sure it’s really sticky to the touch; if it’s not, mix in another tablespoon or two of water. Cover the bowl with a plate, tea towel, or plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature (about 72 degrees F), out of direct sunlight, until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size. This will take a minimum of 12 hours and (my preference) up to 18 hours. This slow rise—fermentation—is the key to flavor.

2. When the first fermentation is complete, generously dust a work surface (a wooden or plastic cutting board is fine) with flour. Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough onto the board in one piece. When you begin to pull the dough away from the bowl, it will cling in long, thin strands (this is the developed gluten), and it will be quite loose and sticky—do not add more flour. Use lightly floured hands or a bowl scraper or spatula to lift the edges of the dough in toward the center. Nudge and tuck in the edges of the dough to make it round.

3. Place a cotton or linen tea towel (not terry cloth, which tends to stick and may leave lint in the dough) or a large cloth napkin on your work surface and generously dust the cloth with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Use your hands or a bowl scraper or wooden spatula to gently lift the dough onto the towel, so it is seam side down. If the dough is tacky, dust the top lightly with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Fold the ends of the towel loosely over the dough to cover it and place it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is almost doubled. If you gently poke it with your finger, making an indentation about 1/4 inch deep, it should hold the impression. If it doesn’t, let it rise for another 15 minutes.

4. Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F, with a rack in the lower third position, and place a covered 4 1/2–5 1/2 quart heavy pot in the center of the rack.

5. Using pot holders, carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven and uncover it. Unfold the tea towel, lightly dust the dough with flour or bran, lift up the dough, either on the towel or in your hand, and quickly but gently invert it into the pot, seam side up. (Use caution—the pot will be very hot.) Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes.

6. Remove the lid and continue baking until the bread is a deep chestnut color but not burnt, 15 to 30 minutes more. Use a heatproof spatula or pot holders to carefully lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool thoroughly. Don’t slice or tear into it until it has cooled, which usually takes at least an hour.

Ricotta orange cookies

This is gonna be a quickie.

See, I had a pound of fresh ricotta that needed to be used (yeah, I know, poor me!) and for some reason cookies came to mind. Don’t ask me why.

Anyhow, I searched around to get a general sense of proportions. Y’know, like how much flour would make sense for the amount of ricotta that I had on hand. Then I just kinda winged it.

Which is to say that I had no idea what I was doing. Not much of an idea anyway. And so should you decide to proceed with caution (or, gasp!, some personal knowledge of cookie baking), I will not be offended in the least.

Oh, the cookies turned out pretty well, I’d say. In no small part due to the orange that I decided to toss in late in the game.

Courage.

Ricotta orange cookies

Makes around 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1 stick sweet butter, softened

1 pound ricotta, preferably fresh but not a deal breaker

Zest of one large orange (or two smaller ones)

1 tablespoon orange liqueur 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a mixer beat together the sugar and butter until fluffy, around 5 minutes or so.

Add ricotta, orange zest, liqueur, vanilla and eggs; mix until thoroughly blended.

Add the flour, baking powder and salt; mix until a dough forms. (Add some milk if dough appears dry.)

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a tablespoon (or your fingers, as I did) drop balls of dough around 2 inches apart. Bake for around 25 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned.

 

Beginner’s luck

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am not a baker. Never have been. Never tried to be.

If you thought that my standards ran high for pastas, I’ve got news for you: I’m way more obsessive about bread. Bakers, good ones, are wizards in my book. I have never before seriously considered loitering on their magnificent, magical turf.

Until now.

You are looking at the first loaf of bread that I have baked in my entire life. And all it took was a weeks-long home quarantine in the middle of a global pandemic to make it happen.

I had some help. The recipe is Jim Lahey’s, he of the very fine Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City. (Here is a link to the recipe, though it is also reprinted below.) Further assistance was provided by two people who have for a decade or so prodded me (sometimes mercilessly) to give bread baking a try, they being “Beth Queen of Bakers” and “My Pain in the Ass Friend Tom.” Via phone, text and email these two old friends were with me the entire way. And I thank them.

So, let’s get started, shall we.

In a large bowl mix together 3 cups bread flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons table salt and 1/4 teaspoon instant or other active dry yeast. (I upped the yeast to a little less than 1/2 teaspoon, which is explained below.)

Add 1 1/3 cups cool water and quickly mix with your hands or a wooden spoon. The dough should be very wet and sticky; if it isn’t add a little more water. Then cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for 12-18 hours at around 72 degrees F. (A couple things: We don’t keep our house that warm overnight, which is why Beth and Tom suggested upping the yeast a little bit. I also let the dough sit for a full 24 hours, as I was advised that a longer rise might add to the finished product’s flavor.)

This is how the dough looked after 24 hours. Still very moist, and bubbly.

Next thing to do is dust a work surface with flour and gently remove the dough from the bowl and onto the work area.

Then sprinkle some more flour on top and gently bring things into a round form.

Like so.

Cover the dough with a cotton or linen towel and let sit an hour or two until the dough has almost doubled in size (I gave it 2 1/2 hours). Around 30 minutes before the end of this rise preheat your oven to 475 degrees F and warm a 4 1/2-quart covered dutch oven inside the oven.

Carefully remove the heated dutch oven from the oven, remove its cover, and gently place the dough inside. Then replace the cover and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the cover and continue baking for another 15-30 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown.

Fifteen minutes is all this took.

Remove the bread from the dutch oven and let it completely cool on a rack before cutting it open.

I don’t say this to brag. Really, I don’t. Beginner’s luck turned out to be awfully kind to me. This bread is awesome. Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, and the flavor is absolutely perfect.

I’m (almost) speechless.

EPILOGUE

You may be wondering whether all-purpose flour can be substituted for bread flour. I know I did. And so I decided to give it a try. I did everything exactly the same except for swapping out the flour.

Here’s the result. The bread was just as crisp on the outside, but not quite as chewy inside. Still a really nice loaf that I would totally make again.

If I were a baker, that is.

 

JIM LAHEY’S NO-KNEAD BREAD RECIPE

Ingredients

3 cups (400 grams) bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons (8 grams) table salt

1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) instant or other active dry yeast

1 1/3 cups (300 grams) cool water (55 to 65 degrees F)

Wheat bran, cornmeal, or additional flour, for dusting

Equipment

A 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-quart heavy pot

Preparation

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the water and, using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds. Make sure it’s really sticky to the touch; if it’s not, mix in another tablespoon or two of water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature (about 72 degrees F), out of direct sunlight, until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size. This will take a minimum of 12 hours and (my preference) up to 18 hours. This slow rise—fermentation—is the key to flavor.

2. When the first fermentation is complete, generously dust a work surface (a wooden or plastic cutting board is fine) with flour. Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough onto the board in one piece. When you begin to pull the dough away from the bowl, it will cling in long, thin strands (this is the developed gluten), and it will be quite loose and sticky—do not add more flour. Use lightly floured hands or a bowl scraper or spatula to lift the edges of the dough in toward the center. Nudge and tuck in the edges of the dough to make it round.

3. Place a cotton or linen tea towel (not terry cloth, which tends to stick and may leave lint in the dough) or a large cloth napkin on your work surface and generously dust the cloth with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Use your hands or a bowl scraper or wooden spatula to gently lift the dough onto the towel, so it is seam side down. If the dough is tacky, dust the top lightly with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Fold the ends of the towel loosely over the dough to cover it and place it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is almost doubled. If you gently poke it with your finger, making an indentation about 1/4 inch deep, it should hold the impression. If it doesn’t, let it rise for another 15 minutes.

4. Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F, with a rack in the lower third position, and place a covered 4 1/2–5 1/2 quart heavy pot in the center of the rack.

5. Using pot holders, carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven and uncover it. Unfold the tea towel, lightly dust the dough with flour or bran, lift up the dough, either on the towel or in your hand, and quickly but gently invert it into the pot, seam side up. (Use caution—the pot will be very hot.) Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes.

6. Remove the lid and continue baking until the bread is a deep chestnut color but not burnt, 15 to 30 minutes more. Use a heatproof spatula or pot holders to carefully lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool thoroughly. Don’t slice or tear into it until it has cooled, which usually takes at least an hour.

Fig cookies revisited

These cookies got me in a lot of trouble last year. For a while it was touch and go whether Cousin Josephine would ever speak to me again.

We had just finished our Christmas Eve dinner and the desserts were coming out, the most crucial, as always, being Jo’s outstanding cookies and biscotti. As my cousin began to uncover one particular tray of baked goods I noticed her eyeing me with purpose and more than a little wariness.

“We’ve NEVER put frosting on our fig cookies,” she announced to me and to no one else.

My cousin was referring to a recipe for fig cookies (aka cuccidati) that I had earlier posted right here on this blog. In it I accused Jo, her mother Anna, our Aunt Laura, and even My Sainted Mother of topping the traditional Christmas cookies with sweet white frosting and colorful rainbow non pareils, not a simple dusting of confectioners sugar, as I prefer and as my recipe suggested.

“Honestly,” Jo added with a look of disappointment that still cuts me a year later, “I don’t know where you get your ideas sometimes.”

This is not how Christmas Eve is supposed to end.

Josephine is more a sister to me than a cousin, and I love her very much. The idea that I would accuse her and all the other bakers in our family of sweet white frosticide on so important a Christmas tradition is not an excusable offense. Not where I come from it isn’t.

I won’t defend myself here. Despite a clear, though evidently flawed memory to the contrary, if Josephine says that she has never used frosting on her Christmas fig cookies then she has never used frosting on her Christmas fig cookies.

I cannot be more sorry for suggesting otherwise.

And wish to dedicate this recipe to my beloved cousin.

For starters, this recipe will make around 5 dozen cookies. Mix together 4 cups all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt. Add two sticks of cold unsalted butter (cut into small cubes) and work the butter into the flour mixture using your hands.

After a couple minutes the flour and butter will kind of clump together, like so.

Add 2 extra large eggs (beaten), 1/2 cup milk, and 2 tablespoons Anisette. Mix together thoroughly by hand until a dough forms.

The dough will be on the moist side, which is okay, that’s what you want. Wrap it in plastic and chill in the fridge for a good couple hours or more before making the cookies. (I actually kept the dough chilling overnight and made the cookies the following day.)

For the filling we’ve got one ring of dried figs (pinch off the hard ends), 1/4 pound pitted dates, 1/2 cup raisins, 1 cup pecans, 2/3 cup walnuts, 1/2 cup candied orange peel, 1/2 cup honey, 1/3 cup whiskey (I went with Jack Daniel’s), 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Put them all together in a food processor and mix into a paste.

Like so.

Cut the dough ball into quarters (put the dough you aren’t working with back in the fridge until ready to use, so it keeps cold). On a well-floured surface roll out one of the pieces of dough until it’s roughly 4 inches wide by maybe 18 or 20 inches long. The rolled dough should be around 1/8-inch thick, give or take. Take a quarter of the filling and roll it along the center of the dough.

Brush the dough with an egg wash and then roll it from one side to the other.

Make sure to pinch along the seam when you’re done rolling.

Making sure that the seam is on the bottom, brush more egg wash along the entire roll.

With a pastry cutter or sharp knife cut the roll into pieces that are around an inch and a half wide. At this point all that’s left to do is put them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. The cookies should bake in a 350 degree F oven for around 20 minutes, give or take. At the halfway mark rotate the baking sheet so the cookies cook evenly. Allow to cool thoroughly.

Then you can sprinkle some confectioners sugar on top before serving. Or not.

Just don’t be pouring no thick white frosting on top of them.

Right, Jo?

Flourless walnut chocolate cookies

Tonight there’s gonna be a pretty swell homecoming dinner at my house and all I got to cook was a batch of these lousy cookies.

Seriously. There’s several courses planned. Not even a pasta course am I asked to contribute!

Jeesch!

Anyhow, what I’m lacking in quantity I’ll make up for in class. These cookies are really delicious, and on the elegant side (just like my friend Scott, the one who’s returning home after several months away). I got the idea for them after seeing this dolci di noci recipe from Calabria, but decided to mess with the recipe and also add the chocolate and the orange.

I should mention that the kitchen has been in constant use all day (by the real cook in the house). To pull off this important “cookie course” of mine I had to get in and out of the kitchen quickly. In other words, they’re some of the easiest cookies you will ever lay eyes on.

There’s no flour in this recipe. This is 1 pound of walnuts and 1 cup of sugar that’s been ground in a food processor. It’s ground very finely but not to a powder.

Add 1/2 cup of cocoa powder and the zest of two large oranges.

Then add two large eggs and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Mix everything together with a spatula until it starts to clump up.

But I find it best to use my hands to finish up the mixing.

Here’s the finished mixture; it only takes a couple minutes to pull together.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and form balls with the dough (around 1 inch high by 1 1/2 inches wide). Place in an oven preheated to 375 degrees F for anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes.

This batch baked for just shy of 20 minutes. It amounted to 25 cookies.

Allow the cookies to cool, then top with confectioners sugar and have at it.

If they let me cook an actual appetizer or entree next time people come over I’ll be sure to let you know.

Beth’s famous pie crust

It’s as good as it looks, yeah.

Nobody — and I mean nobody — makes a pie crust like Beth, Queen of Bakers. Nobody that I’ve met, anyway. And I’ve met a few. There’s a reason why people are always asking for her recipe. I’d ask for it myself if I didn’t have my friend Beth around to make it for me every once in a while.

Just look at this thing! Is it the most gorgeous pie that you have ever laid eyes on or what? Inside there is ground pork and beef and lamb and lots of spices. A wonderful filling, to be sure, made expertly by my closest associate. But let’s not kid ourselves. In the matter of pies, be they savory or sweet or anywhere in between, Crust Rules! We don’t call our Bethie “Queen” for nothing.

So swell a pal is she that, whenever I am in the vicinity on pie-baking days, Beth makes sure to prepare plenty of extra dough for use in other things. My favorite extra has to be her empanadas, the tastiest, flakiest ones on this Earth. Every year she and her no-good companion Tom spend a week visiting. Lots of cooking goes on at the house, contributing to a dizzying variety of leftovers. Perfect fillings for perfect half-moon-shaped pastries. Beth freezes them for me, to enjoy after she has gone. I love this woman.

I emailed Beth a couple days back to tell her that I might be down for a visit soon. When the subject of food came up, as it so often does, I asked if she would mind sharing her recipe here. She said that would be okay.

Lucky for you.

Beth’s Famous Pie Crust
Recipe
Yields one 9-inch crust

1 ¼ cup all purpose flour (I prefer King Arthur)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
1 tbsp buttermilk powder (optional, but I prefer using it)
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled in the freezer to make it super cold
4 tbsp rendered leaf lard, cut into small pieces and chilled (also in the freezer)
3-5 tbsp cold water with 1 tsp chilled cider vinegar added (Note: mix and chill a little extra in case you need more; chill these in the freezer also)

In a large bowl combine until evenly distributed: flour, salt, baking powder, and buttermilk powder (if using).

With a pastry cutter, cut in half of the shortening into the flour mix; then cut in the other half. The dough should look like clumpy sand. From this point on, it’s very important to handle the dough gently to avoid winding up with a tough crust.

Add the chilled water/vinegar one tbsp. at a time, mixing very gently with a fork.

When mixture will hold together into a ball (but is not wet) it is done.

Gather it into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and flatten into a disk.

Chill before rolling out and preparing the pie of your choice.

When pie is finished, make sure to give a little taste to my friend Meatball. He loves the stuff.

Patsy’s lemon ricotta torte

I remember exactly the time that I first made this torte. It was December 2011, when a few friends and I decided to celebrate Sinatra’s birthday by preparing a dinner consisting of many of his favorite foods. (In case you missed the dinner, here’s the link to it). The recipe for the torte, like all the other ones from that evening, is old school. They were based on recipes from the “Patsy’s Cookbook,” the reason for which is made abundantly clear in that birthday dinner link I just mentioned.

I have made this simple, old world torte a couple of times since then, largely because it’s so preposterously simple. This one was in the oven at 6:30 in the morning the other day — before I’d even finished brewing a pot of coffee.

In a large bowl, mix together 3 pounds of ricotta, 3 extra large eggs, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, the zest from one lemon, and one cup of sugar (the Patsy’s recipe calls for 1 2/3 cups of sugar, but I think that’s too much).

Butter and flour a nine-inch spring form pan.

Pour the ricotta mixture into the pan and smooth the top evenly, then place into an oven that’s been preheated to 400 degrees F., for 55 minutes.

This torte took around 65 minutes to bake. At the 55-minute mark the top had not browned at all and the entire cake was jiggling pretty good. It was still loose when I took it out of the oven ten minutes later, but it firmed up nicely while cooling. Once cooled, I covered the torte while it was still in the pan and refrigerated it for a few hours, then took it out of the fridge, removed it from the pan, and let the torte come to room temperature again.

All that’s left now is to sprinkle with some confectioners sugar and serve.

I said it was easy, didn’t I. Pretty delicious too.

I can see why Frank liked it so much.

Christmas struffoli recipe

There is a downside to loving your family.

I can prove it.

(Note to those seeking quick access to this week’s recipe: Scroll down to the next photo, as a rather tense family drama is about to unfold.)

See, I recently promised a loyal reader named Melissa that I would make struffoli for the holidays. Basically crisp fried dough balls cooked in honey, struffoli is a Neopolitan specialty around Christmas, and so Melissa’s request was not at all unexpected. What she didn’t know, however, is that I had never made struffoli before in my life, and so I did the only thing that seemed reasonable.

“Hey Anna,” I barked into the phone, “I want to make struffoli.”

“Good,” my aunt said. “Josephine’s coming this weekend. Come and help if you want.”

Anna sometimes forgets her geography.

“Aunt, I’m 300 miles away. All I want’s your recipe.”

“Are you coming for the Eve?”

This wasn’t a question. I spend every Christmas Eve at my aunt’s dinner table. Where else would I be?

“Yeah, sure, I’ll be there,” I said. “Can I have the recipe now?”

It only took a minute to jot down Anna’s instructions. Then the trouble started.

“Does Aunt Laura use this recipe too?” I asked innocently enough.

“No, she uses milk in hers,” Anna said, brusquely, I thought. “Why, you want her recipe? Her struffoli are no good.”

“I was just asking. Why, what’s wrong with Laura’s struffoli?”

“I just told you, she uses milk. You’re not supposed to use milk.”

“So, what, it ruins the texture? The taste? What exactly?”

“How should I know? I never had your aunt’s struffoli.”

I should mention that Anna and Laura are in no way estranged. In fact, they’re really quite close as sisters-in-law go. They live about a quarter mile apart and see each other regularly.

“You’ve known each other for 70 years and you never had her struffoli? How is that even possible?”

“What do you want from me?”

“And if you never tried Laura’s, how do you know they’re not good?”

“There’s eggplant in the oven,” Anna told me. “I have to go.”

(Note to those of you who are still with me: There is ample time to scroll down to the photos and recipe, you know. I’ll understand.)

A not-so-attractive trait that I possess is tenacity. And so, yes, Laura’s was a struffoli recipe that I now had to have. Due to a bad bit of luck on the health front, speaking to my aunt by phone wasn’t possible, and so I texted my swell cousin Susie, her daughter-in-law, who was still living in Laura’s apartment due to being displaced by Hurricane Sandy back in October: “Ask Laura for her struffoli recipe and email it to me when you get a chance. Also ask her if she’s ever had Anna’s struffoli. If she has, ask her if she liked them.”

A few days later Susie sent me the recipe but nothing else.

“Didn’t you ask her about Anna?” I responded.

“Yes, I did. Not sure if you can use it, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she didn’t actually say anything,” Susie wrote. “All she did was make a face!”

If you are unfamiliar with the language shared by many families such as mine, allow me to translate. Laura’s making a face could only mean one thing: she doesn’t like Anna’s struffoli any more than Anna likes hers. Whether she’s ever tried them or not.

Which brings us to why loving your family as much as I do can be a real problem. By asking both Anna and Laura for their recipes I now had to decide which one of them to actually use. Which meant insulting one of the very dearest women I have ever known.

After two whole days of torturing myself over this decision, and a disastrous attempt at creating an original recipe that made use of chickpea flour (don’t ask!), I readied to inform Melissa that I would not be making struffoli this Christmas after all.

Then the perfect solution arose.

“Hey Fred,” I texted. “I need you-know-who’s struffoli recipe. And pronto.”

My friend Fred, I should mention, shares a home with an expert struffoli maker. Each year this person hosts something called “Struffoli Saturday,” a work event where multiple friends and loved ones get down to the task of producing a hell of a lot of struffoli for their holidays. This individual’s recipe, it turns out, is as closely guarded as her identity. But something very close, Fred assured me, was published in a magazine some time ago. That is the recipe my friend connected me with in order to avoid insulting one of my dear aunts. And that, with only a couple of minor alterations, is the recipe that I have used here.

This recipe (reprinted in full below) calls for a fairly wet dough. First mix the ingredients in a bowl and then roll the dough out onto a floured surface and kneed for a bit.

Once the dough is workable cut it into six pieces and then roll out each piece like so.

Cut into half-inch pieces and lightly roll each one into a ball before deep frying.

It doesn’t take very long to fry struffoli. Depending on the temperature of the oil it can take anywhere from one to three minutes. Just keep an eye on them. These are about as light in color as you’ll want; they can stay in the oil longer and get a bit darker if you prefer.

Removing the struffoli to paper towels gets rid of at least some of the oil. At this stage you can either finish the whole job, part of the job, or just store the struffoli until you’re ready to make them. I prepared the whole batch and so this works out according to the full recipe’s instructions.

Well, sort of. For starters, I used at least twice the amount of candied fruit as called for. (This gets diced up finely, by the way, but the fruit are so pretty I wanted to show them in the pre-cut stage.)

In a pan under low- to medium heat warm honey and the zest of one orange.

Then add the struffoli and mix thoroughly. I also added some of the candied fruit at this stage, but the recipe doesn’t call for that.

Plate the struffoli, sprinkle candied fruit (or colored sprinkles if you prefer), and you’re done.

Now, go and call a relative that you love a lot and wish them a Happy Holiday.

Just don’t ask them for any of their recipes. Especially if you do not intend on using them.

Struffoli
Recipe
Adapted from Bon Appetit magazine

1 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (I used orange peel)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
vegetable oil for deep-frying (I used canola oil)
3/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1/4 cup finely chopped candied fruit (I used more than twice that amount)

Whisk flour and salt in large bowl. Add butter; rub in until fine meal forms.
Whisk eggs, yolk, and next 3 ingredients in medium bowl. Stir into flour mixture. Let dough stand 1 minute.
Turn dough out onto floured surface; knead until pliable (dough will be sticky), about 1 minute. Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll each piece out to 1/2-inch-thick rope. Cut ropes into 1/2-inch lengths.
Add oil to depth of 3 inches in large pot. Heat over medium-high heat to 350 degrees F.
Working in batches, fry dough until brown, 3 minutes per batch. Using slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels.
Stir honey and orange peel in large saucepan over medium heat until warm. Add fritters and toss (I also added some of the candied fruit at this stage). Transfer fritters to platter, shape into wreath. Sprinkle with candied fruit. Cool completely.