Scalitti Sunday

When I was growing up a sure sign that Christmas was near was a plate filled with deep fried honey soaked cookies that my Grandma Bleggi made every year right before Christmas. I tried looking up the recipe on the internet and found that these cookies have many different names and shapes depending on which part of Italy they are from. They are known as Cenci alla Fioorentinat, Crostoli, Struffoli. I found a recipe in Italian that someone wrote for me during my time in Italy where they are called Chiacchiere and made with white wine. Aunt Glenda gave me an old cookbook that belonged to my Grandma with a recipe for Scallini that looked pretty close. We grew up calling them Scalitti. Jake and Riley came down to my parents to help me and Jake kept calling them Scaldinis and talking about frying up some Lamborghinis so I guess we now have even more names to choose from.

It should come as no surprise that there are as many recipes on the internet as there are names. I wanted to make them as close to my Grandma's as possible so I called my Aunt Pat and here is the recipe.

12 eggs
1 cube of butter
10 cups of flour (she remembers the recipe being altered from 1 cup for every egg to a little bit less)
1 teaspoon baking powder for every cup of flour
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt

Beat eggs until fluffy (with the water) add butter then the rest of the ingredients.

Lets just say I struggle with doughs. They never seem to come together the way they should. There is always so much flour left over. I made the dough at my house and wrapped it up and took it to my parents house for the messy stuff...deep frying and dipping in honey.


Jake rolled the out and braided the dough.




Then he helped my dad with the frying.

Then for the super messy fun part...............dipping in honey. I love making a mess.




Riley helped by rolling out the dough. He also just about cut off his tongue while eating flour off of a super sharp knife.



Mark and Angie came down and we finished dipping the cookies in the honey.
It was so messy and fun. I loved it. Jake made us laugh so much he is such a funny funny boy.