In Naples, when March arrives, pastry shop windows fill up with zeppole di San Giuseppe. We wait for them all year: the golden pastry, the custard and that sour cherry in the middle that seems placed there just to catch the eye. Here is their story and the traditional recipe.
A pastry for 19 March
Zeppole are made for the feast of Saint Joseph (San Giuseppe), on 19 March, which in Italy is also Father's Day. Their roots are ancient: in ancient Rome, in March, wheat fritters were fried during the Liberalia. A popular legend, on the other hand, tells that Saint Joseph sold fritters to support his family during the flight into Egypt.
The first written recipe appears in 1837 in the treatise by Ippolito Cavalcanti, in Neapolitan dialect: a simple dough of flour and water fried in oil. The modern version, with choux pastry, custard and sour cherries, took hold in the 19th century, and tradition also gives Neapolitan convents an important role. Goethe, on his Italian journey, had already noted the fritters made in the streets of Naples on Saint Joseph's Day in 1787.
The ingredients
For the pastry (about 12 zeppole):
- 250 ml of water, 100 g of butter (or lard), a pinch of salt
- 150 g of 00 flour
- 4 medium eggs
For the filling: custard (half a litre of milk, 4 egg yolks, 120 g of sugar, 40 g of flour, lemon zest), sour cherries in syrup and icing sugar.
The traditional method
- Bring the water, butter and salt to the boil, tip in the flour all at once and stir until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan.
- Let it cool slightly and beat in the eggs one at a time, until the dough is smooth and glossy.
- Using a piping bag with a star nozzle, pipe two overlapping rings onto squares of baking paper.
- Fry in seed oil at about 170 °C, first with the paper and then without, turning them until puffed and golden. Drain on kitchen paper.
- Make the custard, let it cool and pipe a generous swirl into the centre of each zeppola.
- Finish with one or two sour cherries and a dusting of icing sugar.
The variations
In Naples the fried zeppola, the traditional one, sits alongside the lighter baked version. Elsewhere in the South the versions change: in Apulia they used to be fried in lard, and in Sicily there is the sfincia di San Giuseppe, filled with ricotta. Do not confuse them with the savoury zeppole made from leavened dough that Neapolitans eat fried in the street all year round.
Where to taste them and what is nearby
In March you will find them in every pastry shop in Campania, from Naples to Salerno. For other traditional sweets, read The Neapolitan pastiera, The Neapolitan sfogliatella and The Neapolitan babà. For a complete picture of regional cuisine there are Typical Neapolitan dishes and Typical dishes of Salerno, while to discover the city start with Naples and its surroundings.
Top photo (Naples): This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright protection. It may only be used according to the rules mentioned here. This specifically excludes use in social media, if applicable terms of the licenses listed here not appropriate. Please do not upload an updated image here without consultation with the Author. The author would like to make corrections only at his own source. This ensures that the changes are preserved.Please if you think that any changes should be required, please inform the author.Otherwise you can upload a new image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.