Christmas pasticelle

Christmas pasticelle

The chestnuts ‘Pasticelle’ are  typical of the Piana del Sele and Picentini mountains but are well spread all over the Campania

Ingredients for 8 people:
For the dough

Flour 1 kg

½ cup of olive oil

½ cup of white wine

salt.

For the filling

Chestnuts 750 gr

1 cup of strong coffee

sugar 200g

dark chocolate 100 gr

cocoa 100g

grated rind of 1 tangerine

½ teaspoon of cinnamon powder.

Olive oil (for frying)

icing sugar (for sprinkling).

 PREPARATION

Peel the chestnuts and remove the outer skin then boil them in plenty of boiling water until will be well cooked. Drain them and put them through the mill until will be smooth and creamy. Add, little by little, coffee, sugar, dark chocolate cut into flakes, cocoa, grated rind of tangerine and cinnamon; continue to mix together until will be a smooth cream that will pass again to the mill and put it to rest.

Meanwhile, prepare the dough: pour the flour, then add the olive oil, wine and a pinch of salt; mix well then roll out the dough with a rolling pin to obtain a layer of about 3 mm thick then cut many disks of 8 cm in diameter.

Place on the middle of the prepared disks a bit ‘of chestnut cream and cover with the remaining half of the disks by welding the edges (you have taken care to leave free from filling).

Make some radial incisions about 1 centimeter along the edge of the Pasticelle and fold obtained fringes, alternately downwards and upwards.

Heat in a casserole plenty of olive oil and when hot, fry the Pasticelle.

When they are golden, drain and put them to dry on a paper towel. Sprinkle with icing sugar (or alternatively spray with chestnut honey dissolved in a double boiler) and serve.

Preparation time: 1 hours, 30 minutes, 0 seconds