So What Do You Bake for Christmas?

“So what do you bake for Christmas, Liz?’ my mom’s neighbor Sue asked my mom as the three of us had coffee in Maybelle’s a few weeks ago.  My mom answered “STRUFFOLI.” Sue grew up in a big Italian-American family in Hackensack, NJ and she said that they always made bowties for the holidays.

Almost everybody has their Christmas baking traditions. My sister, Lisa, made so many different cookies. She made pignoli, seven-layers, chocolate sambuca, lemon anginettes, butter, and jam thumb-print cookies, just to name a few. If she ate a cookie that she liked that someone else made, she would get the recipe and add that to her repertoire the next year. My sister, Cristina, also makes a vast variety, including those very impressive seven-layers, cranberry-white chocolate cookies and our great Aunt Tessie’s oatmeal, coconut cookies. Right after Cristina was born, Aunt Tessie made a huge batch of her famous cookies and carried them on the B75 bus from her house in Park Slope to our house in Carroll Gardens so it is fitting that Cristina has carried down that recipe.

A few years ago, my brother, Frankie started a new tradition and knocked our socks off when he brought a tray of homemade linzer tarts to Christmas Eve dinner. They were unbelievable! His girlfriend, Nan, and her mom, Millie, bake beautiful mince tarts that are reminiscent of the jelly tarts from College Bakery. My Uncle Johnny down in Virginia used to make panettone; now that is ambitious.  My cousins Chichi and Lucille make pasticiotti from a recipe that was kept top secret for generations and my Chinese-Thai sister-in-law Cee sends us homemade Italian biscotti! Our neighbor Stacey makes delicious buttery toffee layered with pecans and chocolate that I have already polished off.

I make only two cookies: gingerbread from a box mix that I doctor up with jam and icing and “Terry Scotto cookies” named after our long-ago next door neighbor who gave my mom the recipe. Unfortunately, the recipe said just said “add flour” without any measurement so I just keep adding flour until the dough feels right. 

But I am getting off track here because the #1 Italian-American Christmas sweet in my family has always been struffoli. Struffoli, a traditional Neopolitan Christmas dessert, are little fried balls of dough dressed with honey and topped with little confetti candies (nonpareils). It’s kind of a big job to make struffoli and one that should always be done with at least two people. When we were kids, my aunt would come on a Sunday night right before Christmas and we would all form an assembly line of sorts. My mom would make the dough and do most of the frying and the rest of us would roll out countless ropes of dough and cut them into little pieces. My mom would always say we were cutting them “too big” or that the ropes were “too skinny.” After they were fried, she would drain them in a big scolapasta (strainer) and store them in a brown paper bag until it was time to glaze them with honey. My dad would sneak into the kitchen behind her to sample a few. His job was to make sure they were crunchy on the outside and light and airy on the inside. We would never eat any struffoli until Christmas Eve and oftentimes not until after Mass. When we returned from Midnight Mass or Christmas Day Mass at the Cabrini Chapel, my father would have the struffoli and coffee on the table. He would spoon a few into his coffee, the honey would run off and the struffoli would bob up in his cup. 

My maternal grandmother, Chickie, made struffoli every year and it is her recipe that we still use. I remember that she had a special ceramic bowl for whatever she kept for herself. That bowl, mounded high with struffoli, reminded me of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, with all the multi-colored nonpareils representing the lights. The bowl and all the tins she made to give away would be lined up on a chest in her living room. My grandma also used to fashion some of the ropes of dough into initials for my mom and her siblings which resulted in an extra-special Christmas treat for each of them. 

Struffoli is one of those foods that once I start, I cannot stop eating. Of course, I’m partial to my mom’s but I’m no snob and will gladly sample other recipes. Some people add candied fruits, nuts, or a liqueur to the honey. Years ago, a sweet co-worker of mine, Lou Petronio, made me what he called a ceci (chickpea) ring; it was struffoli molded into a wreath and studded with toasted almonds. I ate the whole thing. And just this weekend, I visited my dear Irish friend, Nora, in her new home. She gave us all a gift tin of struffoli to take home; and that’s what I had for breakfast this morning!

If you would like to try your hand at struffoli, you will find my Grandma Chickie’s recipe below. You will have to eye-ball some of the steps. You can also get store-bought struffoli at Court Pastry, Caputo Bakery, Monteleone, or Mazzola.  I wish you and yours a Buon Natale!

Struffoli

3 cups of flour

6 eggs

pinch of salt

3 teaspoons of baking powder

vegetable shortening for deep frying

honey

multi-colored nonpareils

Make a well with the dry ingredients, add the eggs in the middle and incorporate well.  Let stand until dough rises. Cut dough into small pieces and roll each piece into a rope. Cut ropes into 1/2 inch pieces and deep fry in hot vegetable shortening. Don’t crowd the pot. The struffoli will rise to the surface and become golden when they are done. Remove with slotted spoon, drain in strainer and store in a brown paper bag until ready to add honey.

Warm a few cups of honey on stove until it simmers and foams slightly, add struffoli in batches and stir until all are well covered with the honey. Work in batches, adding honey as needed. Transfer glazed struffoli to a platter or aluminum tin, sprinkle liberally with nonpareils. 

This recipe can be doubled or tripled which may result in a marathon struffoli session!