Sweet, fried, soft. The irresistible zeppole with potatoes, typical of Neapolitan pastry, are easy to make at home with this recipe.
The napoletan zeppole, also called braces, they are a typical fried dessert of the Campania pastry shop: soft donuts prepared with a leavened potato dough, fried and covered with granulated sugar. Similar to krapfen, but with a hole, Neapolitan fried zeppole can be found in bars and pastry shops in Campania throughout the year, but Carnival is one of the most loved moments to prepare them at home with your own hands. Here is ours recipe to prepare zeppole with soft potatoes.
The recipe for zeppole with potatoes
Ingredients for 10 people
1 kg Manitoba flour
450 g Potatoes
300 g Eggs
150 g caster sugar
100 ml Milk
80 g Butter
25 g Brewer's yeast
5 g Salt
Caster sugar to taste
Method
First boil the potatoes in boiling water until they are cooked, let them cool and remove the peel. Mash them with a potato masher.
Place the flour on the work surface and add the eggs, baking powder, sugar, softened butter and mashed potatoes to the center. Knead the dough (by hand or with the mixer) slowly adding the milk and mix all the ingredients well until the dough becomes smooth.
Add the salt and knead for another 10 minutes. Let the dough rise for about 30 minutes at room temperature. It is important that the leavened occurs at a constant temperature, between 28-30 ° C, without changes or currents.
Cut the dough into pieces, create dough loaves and create the typical donut shape. Let rise again on a flour-covered surface, for about two hours, until the dough doubles in volume.
Fry for about two minutes, in abundant boiling seed oil, turning them on both sides. It's important to fry a few wedges at a time: wait for the first side to be slightly golden and then proceed with the second. Drain them on paper towels and dry them in excess oil, without crushing them, and immediately put them in a tray with the sugar to cover them. Serve hot!
Fried potato zeppole: three tips
The first tip concerns the dough: that of our recipe is a basic dough, but it can also be enriched with aromas, as the vanilla or a liqueur, for example del limoncello. And why not perfume it with lemon peel or grated orange?
Once the dough is ready, you can proceed by creating the shape of the zeppole directly by hand. But if you want to get one more precise form, roll out the dough until it is 1 cm thick, use a coppapasta to obtain dough circles and, with the help of the thumb, pierce the center to obtain the typical shape.
Finally, to give an extra gear, you can coat the fried zeppole with granulated sugar mixed with cinnamon. For the sweet tooth it will be impossible to resist one filling with chocolate cream, to hazelnut or al lemon. Transfer the cream to a small smooth-sided pastry bag and fill the zeppole with holes.
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