This Italian Christmas Dessert BLEW My Mind (Struffoli)

Learn how to make this classic Italian Homemade Struffoli Recipe which are delicious fried dough balls coated in a sweet honey syrup. This is the perfect dessert to serve up for the holidays.

Struffoli is a traditional Neopolitano dessert consisting of sweet fried dough balls that are crunchy on the outside but soft in the middle and are often tossed with honey and molded into a specific shape like a ring or a mound. They’re a smaller version of a classic zeppole recipe.

While popularly Italian, the original root word struffolo is Greek, stróngylos, which means “round in shape.” Italy imported this recipe back in the Greek Magna Grecia era, so it’s been around for a long time.

PRINT OFF THIS RECIPE AT: billyparisi.com/homemade-struffoli-recipe/

Ingredients for this recipe:

For the Struffoli:

• 3 ½ cups 00 flour
• zest of 1 orange
• zest of 1 lemon
• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 6 tablespoons lard or unsalted butter
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons anise liqueur
• 1 to 2 tablespoons cold water
• sprinkles
• candied fruit or citron

For the Syrup

• 1 cup honey
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 vanilla bean pod, seeds extracted