Carnival chiacchiere or bugie are light and crumbly pastries based on flour, butter, eggs, milk and sugar and flavoured with grated lemon peel and liqueur. The dough is rolled out thinly and then cut and manipulated to form various shapes (rectangles, strips, flakes, knots…).
It is fried to cook it, making it crisp and crumbly. Finally, sprinkle with icing sugar. Nowadays some people bake them in the oven to avoid frying and make them healthier. But I would rather not make them and cook something else. If I make them I fry them! In the instructions I have put some hints for their cooking.
The thin, crumbly waffle consistency results from the rolling of the dough: it is better to use a machine to roll the sheet which makes it as thin as it should be.
Due to the simplicity (and cheapness) of the ingredients and ease of preparation, Carnival chiacchiere are a dessert from the “poor man’s cuisine” which dates back to ancient times.
It is said that during the Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival that corresponds to our “carnival”, the women would prepare “frictilia”, little desserts made of eggs and flour fried in lard. These desserts then slowly transformed to reach us today.
They are prepared throughout Italy, with different names according to the region. In Liguria and Piedmont they are called bugie.
Ingredients
Tools
You will need a sprinkle sugar.
Steps
Dough
Put the flour in a bowl, mixed with the sugar and a pinch of salt, create a hole in the middle and break the eggs into it. Add the melted butter, the lemon rind, the aniseed liqueur (or other liqueur as you like) and mix the liquids with a fork starting from the middle.
Start to incorporate the flour slowly, pulling it down from the sides. When the liquids have been absorbed and you have obtained a creamy mixture, add the milk.
Blend all the ingredients first with a fork, then by hand, until you have a dough that comes away from the walls of the bowl. If the dough is too sticky, add a little flour.
Make a ball
Let the dough rest for 20/30 minutes at room temperature wrapped in food film.
Roll out the dough with the dough sheeter until you obtain a thin sheet (less than 2mm thick); sprinkle the dough and the pastry board with flour as you roll out the sheet.
Note: the first sheet will be rather sticky. Don’t worry! Fold, roll again and fold again, flouring the dough several times so that it becomes smoother and smoother in the first step. Then continue, making it thinner and thinner in the other steps.
Variant with the rolling pin: divide the dough into 3 parts and lay out one piece at a time, as thin as you can, on a well-floured work surface. Fold the sheet back on itself a couple of times. The more times you fold the sheet, the more the dough will fill with air bubbles while it is cooking!
Using the pastry cutter, cut the dough into strips or rectangles. Then give them the desired shape. You can make two cuts inside the rectangles and then leave them that way or pass the ends of the rectangle inside the holes to form a bow. Or you can knot them and roll up the strips. Or cut the bugie into triangles. You can have fun!
Frying
Prepare the frying pan with the oil for frying.
The oil is ready at a temperature of 175°C. To understand when it is ready, immerse a piece of dough. If it floats, forming small bubbles without sinking, we’re there!
If the piece of dough remains on the bottom, the oil is still cold. If, instead, it colours immediately the oil is too hot.
Fry two or three pieces at a time and turn over a couple of times with the ladle to ensure all sides are cooked.
Note: after cooking a few bugie, they may become too dark, almost burnt, when frying. This means it is necessary to change the oil.
When they are golden, drain and lay out on absorbent kitchen paper. Fry all the bugie very slowly.
Finally, sprinkle with plenty of icing sugar.
If you don’t finish them straight away (unlikely!), keep them in a sealed container and they will keep their flavour longer.
Varied doses for servings