Castagnole di Ricotta (Ricotta fritters – zeppole) A tasty Italian treat

These Castagnole are a tasty Italian treat and the bonus is, they are so quick and easy to make, with just a few simple ingredients. Typically made during holidays and other celebrations, but these are best enjoyed anytime – Bet you can’t eat just one 😊

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00:00 Intro to Castagnole di Ricotta
00:34 Making the dough
05:00 Onto the stove, frying the dough balls
09:05 Adding the finishing touches
10:03 Taste test of the castagnole di ricotta

Castagnole Di Ricotta (Ricotta Zeppole)
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 16 – 20 pcs

Ingredients:
• 135 gm (4.76 oz) (1 full cup) 00 Flour (or any low protein flour, such as cake & pastry flour)
• ½ TSP baking powder
• 240 gm (8.5 oz) ricotta cheese (drained)
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• Zest from 1 orange (alternate – zest from 1 lemon)
• Oil for deep frying (peanut oil or vegetable oil)
• White powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions:
• In a bowl, add the baking powder to the flour, mix in, and set aside.
• In a different bowl, mix the ricotta, egg, sugar and zest, until all incorporated
• Add the flour and mix again, until all the flour is incorporated and you have a stiff batter
• The batter will be sticky, so with floured hands, take about a TBSP of batter and roll it into a ball, about 4 cm (1 ½ inches) round. Continue doing this until all the batter has been used
• In a deep pot or fryer, add peanut or vegetable oil (about 3 inches deep) and heat to 350 degrees F (175 C)
• Carefully put some of the Castagnole balls into the hot oil (use tongs to be safe)
• Fry until dark, golden brown (turning the balls over a few times to ensure even cooking), remove and place them on a paper towel
• Continue frying until all are done
• Sprinkle white powdered sugar on top, or all around – Enjoy

Note: Although it is not essential, it is beneficial to sift your flour first and highly recommended. Also, try to keep your frying temp at around 350 deg. F (175 C) for best results.

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Hello everyone, my name is Ivo and welcome to today’s episode of Cooking with the Coias. We are going to make a quick, simple and tasty Italian treat: Castagnole di Ricotta, also known as Ricotta Zeppoli or Ricotta Fritters. These things come together so quickly, they’re great to make, especially with children, because from start to finish it’s real quick and they get to enjoy the results right away. So having said that, let’s get started right now. And it takes simple ingredients. What I have here, 135 grams of double zero flour. You could also use cake and pastry flour. You just want a low protein flour, double zero is great. And to that, we’re gonna add a half a teaspoon of baking powder. Just sprinkle that in. Mix it together. Set that aside. Now the star of the show, ricotta. If you buy it in the tub, make sure it’s drained. You want it nice and nice and dry. So here we have a hundred or sorry, we have two hundred and forty grams of ricotta. So we’re just going to put that in the bowl. Beautiful ricotta, I’d love to eat this, but we’re gonna bake with it today. Okay, so in it goes to that. We’re gonna add I have here one third of a cup of white sugar. And one large egg. In it goes and quite simply Just mix everything together. So let’s just mix this all together so it’s all incorporated. Okay, this has come together quite nicely and is looking nice and smooth. There we go. Okay, now another Star of the show. Orange zest. We’re gonna take the zest from one orange and add it right to our mixture here with the ricota and the egg and the sugar. And here’s the thing make sure you take your orange and you scrub it clean because we’re directly adding the zest right into Our cookies, so you wanna make sure that it’s very clean. Alright, so let’s get the zest. Off of this one orange. And of course you just want the zest. Try to avoid the pith because that’s a little bit bitter. You want that beautiful zest. So let’s mix that beautiful orange zest in with our decolta mixture. Okay, and yes, when you think you’ve mixed enough, just mix a little bit more. Make sure everything is tossed up. And evenly spread out. Speaking of mixing, time to add our flour mixture. So just take your flour and And start to mix until all that flour is incorporated. And this now becomes the base. For Article Tzeppoli. Okay. Work this together and work it in. Get it all worked in. Okay, there we have it. Everything is mixed in and incorporated nicely. Our dough is now ready. All right. So now Fun part again, if you have kids with you, get them involved. Maybe a little bit of flour on the hands. Get some of your your dough and just roll them into the size of a meatball. Or if you’ve ever been to Tim Hortons, the size of a Tim bit. In fact, with the kids, I called these Italian bits. That’s the name I gave it when I was making these with my grandkids. So just take them all and if if they’re too sticky, you know, just put a little bit of flour in your hands. Take about a tablespoon. And make yourself a nice Round Just like that. Okay, let me work my way through this dough and get all of these. Done up quite nicely. So we ended up with 16 castagnoli. Aren’t they nice? Look at that. And in case you’re wondering, each one of these castagnoli are about 30 to 35 grams per piece. So let’s make our way over to the stove. Alright. Fire up our stove. So here you’re gonna want to use some oil for frying, peanut oil, vegetable oil, seed oil. I like personally like peanut oil, but use whatever frying oil you have that you prefer. And we’re gonna bring this up to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. So let’s get this oil. Let’s see how our oil is doing. Two hundred and seventy seven, two seventy nine, two eighty. It’s coming up nicely, and of course make sure you have enough oil for deep frying. Okay, another peak. And we are approaching 350. We’ve got 340 right now, 342, 343. Okay. So we’re getting to 350. And we are now going to very gently А кастни інту. The hot oil. Try not to drop in with your using your hands because you don’t want to get splashed or burnt. And the temperature of the oil is very, very important, folks, because if you have it, let’s say at over 400, what happens is they get cooked on the outside, but the inside doesn’t cook. It cooks too fast because we’re going to want these to be a nice golden brown color. So we’re going to let these cook. Try to maintain that temperature around 350. I’m sure it’s dropped now since we’ve put those in. Yeah, 338, 337. So it’s going to come back up, 340, 342. And we’re going to cook these to a nice golden brown color. And as you can see, it’s starting to float here as they start to cook. They pop up. Oh yeah, they are they are coming very nice. There we go. There’s our fifth one. You don’t want to overcrowd your pot either. And let’s get these cooked nicely to a nice golden brown color. And of course you can turn them so they cook all around. Beautiful. How’s our temperature doing, folks? Three forty six, three forty seven, three forty that’s perfect. That’s exactly where we want to be, right around that three fifty mark. Okay, these are invaluable folks, just invaluable. How about this one needs a turn? Look at that. They are coming really, really nice. So they’re not dark enough though. We want to make sure they get cooked on the inside. So let’s get them a nice darker golden. Just a nice little gentle turn. There we go. Beautiful. Some of them turn on their own. Look at that. Okay, let’s get you turned. Nice. Look at that. That one’s beautiful right there. Oh, they’re coming really good. I’m liking that color right there. We got a nice dark golden color. Beautiful. Look at that. Isn’t that nice? Absolutely beautiful. Okay. And how quick and easy were these to put together, folks. How quick and easy were these to put together. Look at this one. Okay, get these out and get some more added so our oil doesn’t get too hot. Beautiful. Alrighty, same thing. Whoops. And we’re gonna add another five and let’s go through and get these all fried up. And here we have our last batch. Let’s turn our oil off. And they are looking really, really good. Look at that beautiful color. That’s what you want. A nice, let’s call it a dark golden brown. Dark golden brown. Oh yeah. Two more. And last but not least Okay, oil off the heat. We are gonna dress these up. Okay, look at that. Now we’re gonna take some Powdered sugar. And be generous. Be generous just like having a beignet in New Orleans. Lots of white powdered sugar. No you’re talking. Okay. I think that’s pretty good. Oh my well this one here maybe a little more. Okay, let’s get these plated. Just take a look at these beauties right here. Look at this. Oh yes folks, you know what? The taste test, it’s coming up. I’m gonna eat them while they’re still nice and warm. Let’s make our way over to the table. I’m gonna get myself an espresso and we’re gonna have a nice little taste test. Oh yes, I am looking forward to this. Which one do I take? How about this one right here? The taste test, folks. Mm-mm. The Ricolta and the orange, that zest, what a fantastic combination. And look how light and fluffy and airy they are on the inside. If you could take a look at that. That’s where that double zero flower comes in. Or the low protein flour, that’s the key. Look at this. Absolutely delicious. Tim Horton’s Timbits, look out. Because these Absolutely delicious. They are so tasty. And you saw how quick and easy that was to come together. Simple ingredients, simple process, so quick and easy to make. Yes, they’re enjoyed during holiday season, but don’t wait for holidays. You need to make these like right now. Seriously. They are so good. And as far as children go, the kids will absolutely love them. They are really, really good. Wherever you’re tuning in from, folks, you know I always love it when you spend time with me in the kitchen, and I love it more when you make those these recipes, and this one is no exception. I want to thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Cooking with the Koyas. And as always, folks, until next time, bonapetito and salute. Oh, what a perfect snack. So only one problem, folks. Yeah, you know it. You can’t just eat one. It’s impossible. Cooked perfectly too.