Frappe, chiacchiere, lattughe, bugie or cenci .... we could go on and on as every Italian region has a different name for them!
They are delicate and crispy fritters that are typical of the Carnival period in Italy.
History tell us that probably these fritters were made since ancient Roman times.
The Romans used to make desserts called "frictilia' with eggs and flour deep fried in lard for the 'Saturnalia', a festivity for the god Saturn ( which is the equivalent of today's carnival ).
Prep : 20 mins
Resting : 30 mins
Cooking time : 2 mins
Ingredients for about 40 pcs :
500 gr plain flour
30ml of Strega liqueur or limoncello
1 tsp of vanilla extract
70 gr or caster sugar
4 medium eggs
50 gr of unsalted butter at room temperature
6 gr of baking powder
1 pinch of salt
Peanut oil or Sunflower oil for deep frying
icing sugar
Method
Sieve flour and baking powder in a bowl, add sugar, eggs, vanilla, the liqueur, salt and butter and knead it until you have a smooth dough for about 15 mins.
If the dough appears too dry you can add a little bit of water (10 ml at the time).
When the dough it's smooth and soft cover it with cling film and let it rest for at least 30 mins at room temperature.
Divide the dough into 150 gr portions each and using a pasta machine roll it out thinly until you have a sheet of 2mm thickness.
Now you can cut all the sheets with a pastry wheel in a rectangular shape with 2 small lines in the centre.
You can now deep fry your Frappe at 160 C until they are nice and gold but not too dark.
Spread out the frappe onto kitchen paper to dry excess oil .
Let them cool & with a small sieve dust them with lots of icing sugar!
Buon Carnevale!