Father’s Day in Italy is coming up on March 19, la festa di San Giuseppe (St. Joseph’s Day. This holiday has given rise to any number of special dishes, some of which such as bignè di San Giuseppe and the pasta con la mollica we’ve already featured on this blog. Today I want to share with you the recipe for what might just be the most famous of all San Giuseppe dishes: zeppole di San Giuseppe.

Zeppole di San Giuseppe are doughnut like swirls of fluffy choux pastry, baked and dusted with confectioner’s sugar, then topped with another swirl of thick pastry cream and crowned with a black cherry.

This pastry looks delightful and it tastes even better than it looks! It’s surprisingly easy to pull off, so long as you arm yourself with a star-tipped pastry bag to give the confection its iconic swirly look. The whole process should take less than an hour.

Like other zeppole, zeppole di San Giuseppe were traditionally fried, but for today’s post I’m proposing a modern baked version, which is not only lighter (if not exactly dietetic) but also less fussy to make.

Even if you’re not celebrating Father’s Day this month, do give it a try!

Ingredients

Makes 4-5 zeppole

For the pastry dough:

50g/2 oz butter
1 Tbs sugar (optional)
250g/1 cup water
a tiny pinch of salt
150g (1 cup) flour, preferably of the “OO” variety
3-4 eggs, beaten

For the pastry cream:

2 egg yolks
75g (1/3 cup) sugar
20g (2 Tbs) flour or corn starch
250 ml (2 cups) milk (or equal parts milk and cream)
1 tps vanilla extract (or a vanilla bean, split open)

For the topping:

Confectioner’s (aka powdered) sugar
Amarena or best quality maraschino cherries (one per zeppola)

Directions

Making the choux pastry

In a saucepan, bring the butter and water to a simmer. When the butter has melted, take off the heat and whisk in all the flour. Return to the heat and stir vigorously over a gentle flame for a minute or two, until the dough forms a smooth ball.

Turn the dough into the bowl of a standing mixer, spread it out over the bottom and sides with a spoon or spatula to speed cooling. Let it cool completely.

Place the bowl on the standing mixer with the whisk attached. Set the speed to medium and add the beaten eggs to the bowl one by one. Continue whisking the eggs into the dough until it obtains a smooth, thick paste-like consistency. (This step also works with a hand mixer, of course.)

Fill a pastry bag with a star tip with the dough. On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, pipe doughnut shaped swirls of the dough about 8-10cm (3-4 inches) wide. Go round twice so that each zeppola has two layers of pastry, like so:

Bake your zeppole at 200C/400F for 25-30 minutes, or until they are cooked through and golden brown. They should puff up considerably as they bake.

Place them on a rack and let them cool completely.

Making the crema pasticciera (pastry cream)

In a standing mixer bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until smooth and the mixture forms ‘ribbons’ as the whisk rotates. Then add the flour or cornstarch slowly, bit by bit, into the mixture until fully incorporated. The mixture should be a pale yellow and quite fluffy.

Meanwhile, heat the milk (or milk and cream) over moderate heat until hot but not boiling. You will see little bubbles just beginning to form around the edge of the pot. (If you are using a vanilla bean, add it to the milk and let it steep for a few minutes, then remove it.) Take the milk off the heat and drizzle it, little by little, into the mixer bowl.

Now pour the whole thing from the bowl into the pot (along with the vanilla extract if using) and put it over very gentle heat, whisking continuously and vigorously. After a while, it should begin to thicken. Keep stirring until you have a thick custard.

Remove from the heat, and let the mixture cool completely. It will thicken further as it cools.

Putting the zeppole together

Shortly before you’re ready to eat, dust each of the zeppole with confectioner’s sugar.

Then, using a star tipped pastry bag, pipe a good swirl of the pastry cream in the center of each zeppola, making sure to completely cover the hole in the middle.

Finally, place a cherry in the middle of the pastry cream.

Serve immediately, or within an hour or two.

Notes

The trickiest bit about making zeppole di San Giuseppe is getting the right consistency of dough. It should be a stiff paste, soft enough to pipe easily but firm enough to keep its shape. And for this, the crucial step is adding the eggs. Four is the usual number recipes call for, but since eggs vary in size, I would start with 3 eggs and see the consistency you get, then add another one if you think it needs it. If you overshoot the mark, you can always add a spoonful or two of flour to firm up the dough.

As for the pastry cream, the main pitfall is avoiding lumps. See the Notes for our post on sporcamuss for tips.

You’ll need a rather wide star shaped tip for your pastry bag for piping out the dough, so that your zeppole turn out the right size and shape. Italian recipes will specify 12-15mm wide, or about 1/2 inch. For our North American readers, I found that a 1M tip worked quite well, while my cyber friend Christina Conte of Christina’s Cucina recommends the similarly sized 2D tip. And you can use the same tip for piping out the pastry cream topping.

If you like, you can of course make the pastry cream first, then the choux pastry. There’s no special magic in the order. I just find it saves time to make the pastry first, then the cream while the pastry is baking. But whichever order you choose, make sure both are completely cool before proceeding with assembling your zeppole di San Giuseppe.

Choosing your cherries

Zeppole di San Giuseppe are topped with a cherry, most classically the black cherries in syrup that Italians call amarene sciroppate. The best known are the Fabbri brand, which you should be able to find in most well stocked supermarkets or online. Another delicious if less conventional option are best quality mareschino cherries imported from Italy. The Luxardo brand, which you can find in many liquor stores for making cocktails, is quite good. A note for US readers: please avoid those overly sweet, artificially flavored and bright red dyed atrocities you’ll find in supermarkets that make a mockery of the name “mareschino”.

Variations

If you want to use the traditional frying technique for making zeppole di san Giuseppe, pipe out the zeppole in the same way as indicated above, but use small squares of parchment paper for each zeppola. Get your oil nice and hot but not smoking, say around 180C/350F, and slip the zeppole into the oil one by one. Deep fry on both sides until golden brown.

One popular variation on the classic zeppole di San Giuseppe is adding chocolate to the pastry cream. It’s really easy to do, you just add a couple of spoonfuls of cocoa, or say 50g/2oz of bittersweet chocolate in small bits, to the still hot pastry cream. Stir until it melts.

Making ahead

Once you’ve assembled your zeppole di San Giuseppe, you should really eat them right away, no more than an hour or so later.

That said, you can make the component parts as much as a day or two ahead, then assemble them right before you want to eat. The pastry cream should be stored in the oven, with plastic wrap on top to prevent a film from forming. The pastry should be stored in a cool place loosely wrapped in paper as you would a loaf of bread.

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