Homemade Carnival Doughnuts or Fried Bomboloni, Just Like at the Café

Carnival desserts include fried doughnuts like those served at an Italian café.

What are Carnival doughnuts?

 

Fried doughnuts are a popular Carnival treat. Their soft dough and coating of granulated sugar make them especially tempting.

Some versions add boiled potato to the dough for a softer texture. This variation is associated with Campania and is commonly known as Neapolitan graffe.

How to make fried Carnival doughnuts

Ingredients for about 14 doughnuts

-500 g 00 flour

-100 g granulated sugar

-150 g butter

-3 whole eggs

-1 sachet baking powder (16 g)

-1 sachet vanillin

-1 small glass Marsala or another dry liqueur

Method for the fried Carnival doughnuts

• Combine the flour, melted butter, eggs, baking powder, vanillin and a small glass of Marsala in a bowl until the dough is firm and not too soft.
• Wrap the dough in food-safe film and let it rest in the refrigerator for half an hour or a little longer.
• Roll the dough to about half a centimetre thick. Cut out the doughnuts using 2 pastry cutters of different sizes or 2 glasses.

How to fry and serve the doughnuts

• Fry the doughnuts in hot oil until evenly golden, then place them on absorbent paper to remove excess oil.
• Coat them with granulated sugar and serve.

For a filled bombolone instead of a ring, cut out a round disc without removing the centre.

Fry the disc in oil, then fill it with cream or hazelnut-and-cocoa spread.

 

 

Fried potato doughnuts: Neapolitan graffe

 

This second version adds boiled potato to the dough. The article calls these particularly soft doughnuts Carnival graffe.

Ingredients:

-500 g flour

-250 g potatoes

-half a glass of milk

-50 g softened butter

-grated lemon zest

-1 cake fresh yeast

-1 egg

-50 g sugar

 

How to make Carnival graffe

• Boil and peel the potatoes, then mash them into a purée; the original article suggests using a potato ricer.
• Arrange the flour in a mound with a well in the centre. Add the eggs, the yeast dissolved in the milk and the softened butter, then begin combining the ingredients with a fork or your hands.
• Add the mashed potatoes, sugar and grated lemon zest.
• Once the dough is even, shape the doughnuts and let them rest for 2 hours, covered with a damp cloth.
• Fry them in hot oil, coat with sugar and serve.