Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Scruples

Scruples
a.k.a. “Italian Doughnuts”
(pronounced screw-PELLA)

4 to 5 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
¼ cup softened margarine
2 cups very hot tap water
2 tablespoons Amaretto
1 egg (at room temperature)
Peanut Oil
Cinnamon-Sugar mix

In a large bowl thoroughly mix 1 ¼ cups flour, sugar, salt and undissolved dry yeast. Add softened margarine. Gradually add very hot tap water to dry ingredients and beat 2 minutes at medium speed of electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally. Add egg and enough flour to make a thick batter. Beat at high speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough. Cover, let rise in a warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down and let rise again. After the two risings, grab meatball amounts of dough out of the bowl, cut off with a knife or scissors and drop into hot oil (375˚) and fry until golden brown. Put cinnamon-sugar mix into paper bag and shake the warm doughnuts in the bag. Do not store in airtight container or ziplock bag! Store in paper bag and eat them quickly.

(Adapted from Great-Gram Santillo's recipe)

2 comments:

The Grands said...

I assume you read my E-mail about ethnic foods; so as not to embarrass ourselves anymore than what we have already inflicted, let us agree to change the name of this delicacy to "crispelli". Also, I do not think anyone knows Gram Santillo's recipe for her dough; What I do know...when I wanted to make the crispelli for the first time, my mother gave me the recipe for fastnachtskuchen which she got out of a Fleischmanns
booklet...that's what she was using for whatever reason. The recipe you posted in your blog is exactly from Fleischmann's New Treasury of Yeast Baking (kind of a bummer). Of course, your additon of Amaretto would please most paisono's. Later alligator.

Terry Bleizeffer said...

I saw the note about crispelli, but I have to wonder: how many years do we need to use the same term (like "scruples") before it becomes the de facto family standard?

I refuse to attribute that recipe to Fleischmanns. It just feels wrong. Especially for a recipe with a German sounding name that includes Amaretto!