These chocolate and ricotta donuts are a delicious and quick dessert. Making them is so simple and everyone will like them.
As I've said many times before, ricotta is one the the most widely used ingredients in typical Sicilian preparations - both savoury and sweet. It is the undisputed queen of so many Sicilian desserts (just think of cassata, cannoli, cornetti, gelati and so much more) and in this case, it gives a wonderfully soft texture to these donuts.
There are as many versions of these donuts (we call them "frittelle" in Italian) as household. In most versions, the dough is made by using eggs, sugar and baking powder, just like you would prepare a cake. But in my family, we rather make a pizza dough, only with a slightly higher hydration (basically higher ratio of water:flour). We use yeast instead of baking powder, use no eggs, and only add sugar to the ricotta and not to the dough itself, where instead we add a pinch of salt.
The result is a lighter and less sweet dough where the sweetness comes mainly from rolling the donut in sugar after frying.
Curious to hear how you guys make it instead. Leave a comment.
Ingredients
250 g of ricotta
300 g of 00 flour
200 ml of milk, lukewarm
120 g of sugar
200 g of chocolate chips
140 g of potato starch
2 tsp dry bread yeast
Grated zest of 1 orange
1 tsp orange blossom water
Sunflower oil for deep fryingFry oil
Powdered Sugar
A pinch of salt
Method
Dissolve the yeast in the milk and let is activate for 5 minutes - the milk should become frothy.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl mix the ricotta and sugar to a smooth consistency. To this add the orange zest, orange blossom water and chocolate.
Mix the flour and potato starch and add them to the ricotta cream in batches while mixing with a spatula, until you obtain a very soft and sticky dough. No need to overwork the dough or use your hands - it'll be too sticky.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 2 hours or until doubled in volume.
Heat the oil in a deep pan and, using a spoon, drop a spoonful of dough into the hot oil allowing the donut to brown on all sides. You can fry 3-4 donuts at a time, depending on the size of your pan. The oil temperature shouldn't be too high or the dough will remain raw inside.
Drain the donuts and transfer to a plate lines with kitchen paper. When slightly cooled down, roll each donut in sugar and enjoy while still warm.
Buon appetito!
Comments