Carnival, the time preceding Easter festivity, is traditionally a period full with cakes and sweets in italy.

This because, during Lent (the weeks before Easter) people are asked to maintain a frugal diet, thus giving up eating meat and traditionally, during Lent, no parties or other celebrations are held, and people refrains from eating rich foods, such as meat, dairy, fats and sugar. The forty days of Lent, recall the Gospel accounts of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness, serve to mark an annual time of turning.

This is why in the days before Lent, all rich food and drink had to be disposed of and in Italian kitchens starts a blaze of sweets, cakes and pies.

Today’s recipe is a traditional sweet eaten during the Carnival period, the Chiacchere, a very friable fried sweet sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Here’s the recipe for a batch of Chiacchere! happy cooking!

Ingredients:

• 70gr of butter
• vanilla flavouring
• baking powder
• 100 gr sugar
• 500 gr flour
• salt
• liquor
• 3 eggs
• oilseed

Preparation:

Sift the flour with the baking powder and place it all in the bowl of a robot with the butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, half a glass of liquor (brandy or othersweet liquor) and a pinch of salt.

Mix and knead the ingredients well for a few minutes, up when the dough will be smooth and elastic. Shape it as a ball and leave it to rest for around 1 hour, well wrapped in transparent wrap in a cool place.

Flatten the dough and then, with a scalloped wheel-cut form some 5cmx10cm strips, with two parallel edges in the middle.

Fry the strips in hot but not boiling oilseed, turning them on both sides and paying attention not tu burn them.
Drain them on absorbent paper and, when cold, sprinkle with vanilla icing sugar and serve.

And now.. Buon appetito!

Would you like to discover and learn other tasty Florentine recipes?

Have a look at our cooking couses in Florence!