Sunday, March 20, 2011

Happy St. Joseph's Day! Gluten Free Zeppoles!

Yesterday marked the celebration of St. Joseph's Day! What is St. Joseph's Day you ask? Its a very question! According to calendar-updates.com:


Joseph's Day is a Roman Catholic feast day commemorating the life of St. Joseph, the step-father of Jesus and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. People with very strong religious association, often those of southern Italian descent, typically celebrate St. Joseph's Day. March 19 is said to be St. Joseph's birthday.


The zeppole has become a longstanding tradition to celebrate this day of feast! Thanks were given to St. Joseph for preventing a famine in Sicily during the Middle Ages.
To celebrate St. Joseph's Day, I have recruited a guest cook to dish up a plethora of gluten free zeppoles! Here's what you'll need for the filling:

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
  • 1 tablespoon margarine or butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
In a medium saucepan, combine the first three ingredients. Then gradually add in your milk. 
Once your dry ingredients have dissolved completely, cook over medium heat until the mixture boils....be sure to continue stirring. Boil for one minute (while continuing to stir), then remove from heat. 

Next, add in pudding to your egg yolks, one spoonful at a time. You won't want to just pour the egg yolks in, or you'll end up with scrambled eggs!
After combining half of your milk mixture to your eggs, add in your diluted egg yolks to your saucepan...
Add in the vanilla and butter. Refrigerate until pudding has set. 

Before I began with the "puff" part of the Zeppole, I had a helper get me up to speed on how to prepare the filling! 

 For the Puff!
  • 1 cup water
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup King Arthur Gluten Free Flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
  • 4 large eggs
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Bring the water, butter, sugar and salt to a boil in a large saucepan. 
Combine flour and xanthan gum. Add the flour all at ounce to your saucepan and stir over medium heat until the dough is not stuck to the sides of the pan and it forms a ball around the spoon.
Remove from heat and beat in one egg at a time until the batter is smooth. Add in orange and lemon zest, and continue to beat until your batter is smooth and glossy.

Use a rounded tablespoon to drop batter onto a lightly greased or nonstick baking pan. 

Bake until evenly and lightly golden brown, or for about 20 minutes. Then, reduce temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking until medium golden brown and a puff, or zeppola feels very light when picked up from the baking sheet, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.
Cut the zeppole in half, leaving them attached on one side. Spoon the filling into the zeppole.
Dust the tops with powdered sugar and enjoy!


2 comments:

  1. Yum, these look really good! I love zeppole. Great photos too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UN. BE. LEAVE. ABLE.

    Homemade zeppole AND gluten free?? I think we have my next baking project!

    ReplyDelete