Struffoli also known as Honey Balls (; nap, struffule ) is a
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
dish made of deep fried balls of sweet dough. The dough is used in many Italian sweet treats such as
chiacchiere. For struffoli, the dough is formed in to balls about the size of marbles. Crunchy on the outside and light inside, struffoli are mixed with honey and other sweet ingredients and formed into mounds or rings. There are many different ways to flavour them, but the traditional way is to mix them in honey with ''diavulilli'' (
nonpareils sprinkles), cinnamon, and bits of orange rind. Naming varies by region: in
Calabria
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they are also known as ''scalilli'', and in
Abruzzo
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''cicerchiata''. They are often served at
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
and are sometimes served warm.
History
A similar dish is described by
Archestratus, a Greek poet from
Gela
Gela (Sicilian and ; grc, Γέλα) is a city and (municipality) in the Autonomous Region of Sicily, Italy; in terms of area and population, it is the largest municipality on the southern coast of Sicily. Gela is part of the Province of Ca ...
in Sicily. It was called ''enkris'' ( el, ἐγκρίς) — a dough-ball fried in olive oil, which he details in his ''Gastronomy''; a work now lost, but partially preserved in the
Deipnosophists
The ''Deipnosophistae'' is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work ( grc, Δειπνοσοφισταί, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. "The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts") by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of liter ...
of
Athenaeus
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of ...
, which mentions ''enkris'' thirteen times, in various
inflected
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and de ...
forms.
The most complete description of it in the ''Deipnosophists'' is a passage that reads:
The name struffoli originates from the Greek word strongoulos, which means rounded.
Similar dishes
*
Piñonate (Andalusia)
*
Gulab jamun (South Asia)
*
Croquembouche
A ''croquembouche'' () or ''croque-en-bouche'' is a French dessert consisting of choux pastry puffs piled into a cone and bound with threads of caramel. In Italy and France, it is often served at weddings, baptisms and first communions.
Name
T ...
(France)
*
Lokma
Lokma, also known by their Greek name, loukoumades, are pastries made of leavened and deep fried dough balls, soaked in syrup or honey, sometimes coated with cinnamon or other ingredients. The dish was described as early as the 13th century by a ...
(Mediterranean basin)
*
Pignolata (Sicily)
*
Teiglach
Teiglach , also spelled taiglach or teglach ( yi, טייגלעך, singular teigel, literally "little dough") are small, knotted pastries boiled in a honeyed syrup. They are a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish treat for Rosh Hashana, Sukkot, Simchat T ...
(Jewish cookies)
*
Çäkçäk (Tatar, Bashkir and Central Asian dish)
See also
*
List of deep fried foods
This is a list of deep fried foods and dishes. Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, such as cooking oil. This is normally performed with a deep fryer or chip pan, and industrially, a pressure fryer or vacuum ...
*
List of doughnut varieties
Doughnuts are a type of fried dough food. The following is a list of doughnut varieties.
Variations and specialties by region
The terms below constitute either names for different doughnut types created using local recipes, or for the local la ...
References
{{pastries
Italian desserts
Christmas food
Neapolitan cuisine
Italian doughnuts