“What the hell is bomboloni?” you may ask. Well, you uneducated fool, bomboloni is a fried dough snack popular in Italy, Tuscany to be exact (and uh, sorry for calling you a fool, I was just kidding). Its kind of like a beignet (I made those a few months ago, click here to see), or zeppole. They’re more like donut holes, or “Munchkins” from Dunkin’ Donuts, than actual doughnuts. You can fill them with chocolate cream, or pastry cream,  or even jam. You could drizzle them with melted chocolate and powdered sugar, or dip half of them in a glaze of some sort. You could also probably have them plain. However not all bomboloni is sweet- some can be filled with cheeses and such (just like beignets can be filled with meat and cheese). But I prefer the sweet kind of fried dough, myself. So these particular bomboloni’s are not covered in powdered sugar, oh no. They are spiced sugar bomboloni’s; coated in sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger.

This is a piece I like to call ‘Bomboloni Bowls.’

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I cut this recipe out of Blueprint magazine from the November/December 2007 issue.  Sadly, Blueprint is now closed, but you’re lucky I saved this recipe, because you can now be cool enough to have found a recipe for a dessert called ‘bomboloni’ as well.

SPICED SUGAR BOMBOLONI

Ingredients:

Makes 25 doughnuts

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 4 envelopes plus 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 large eggs
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt
• Vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

Serve these babies with some espresso and you’re good to go.

Mine did not turn out completely round, like little balls, but I don’t think there’s really a shape qualification for these anyway. You could make them into balls by rolling the dough, if you really want. The spiced-sugar is ah-mah-zing, but I did some with powdered sugar too, because I’m a sucker for a zeppole-style taste, as you can see below. I omitted the cloves from the sugar mix because I don’t like the taste of cloves. Reminds me of the dentist.

Just a tip: make sure they’re cooked all the way through. You don’t want a messy, uncooked middle. They’re going to get pretty dark on the outside before they’re totally done. Just don’t burn them. If they aren’t cooking through properly, your oil isn’t hot enough or deep enough.

I also think it made way more than 25. But I rolled my dough thinner than 1 inch, so duh.