Today is pancake‘s Tuesday but it is also the last day of the Carnival. One of the traditional desserts for this time of the year are Frittelle. They are sweet deep fried balls made with raisins or apples. In some parts of Italy (in Venice for instance) they are filled with cream or Nutella. Only one word to describe them… DELICIOUS (avoid them if you are on a diet!).

BEFORE YOU START you need to keep in mind few things about frittelle: first of all you will fry a lot so your kitchen will be VERY smelly after! Also don’t worry if your frittelle will look like little monsters, this is normal! You will need a lot of practice before having the “perfect frittella”

What you need:

• 120 g plain flour
• 80 g self-raising flour
• 2 eggs
• 50 g butter
• 60 g sugar
• 70 ml milk
• lemon essence or lemon zest
• 1oo grams sultans or 2 chopped apples
• 1 pinch of salt
• sunflower oil for frying

How to make it:

Warm up the oil in a big pan. Sift together the flour, the baking powder and the sugar. Add to the “dry ingredients” the melted butter, the eggs (one at time), the milk, the lemon zest and the pinch of salt. Combine well all the ingredients until you have a smooth and fluid dough. The last step is to add the sultans or the apple. Now comes the hardest part: with 2 teaspoons gather a small amount of dough and drop it into the boiling oil, like if you want to create small balls. IMPORTANT: do not fry too many spoons of dough at the same time or it will be a mess. Depending on the size of the pot but I suggest you not to fry more than 5 frittelle at the time. It will take you more time but you won’t waste anything.

Make sure you turn your frittelle while they are frying so they will get the same colour on all sides and you won’t burn them. Once they are golden brown drain them well and place them on a kitchen paper to absorb the extra oil.

Once all the frittelle are ready, let them cool down and only when they are completely cold sift them with icing sugar.