Carnival is almost over and, even among our recipes, fried sweets could not be missing.

Since my daughter has a coeliac boyfriend, I modified the typical Venetian recipe and prepared these fritters with rice flour and potato starch. These are typical fritters to be filled with custard or Chantilly or Zabaglione cream. Since my daughter is crazy about zabaglione, I suggest you fill them with zabaglione Chantilly cream. Let’s prepare them together…

Ingredients:

For about 20/25 fritters:

• 200 g water
• 30 g butter
• 40 g rice flour
• 60 g potato starch
• 5 medium eggs
• 20 g sugar
• 5 g salt
• Grated peel of one orange and one lemon
• ½ vial of rum flavouring
• sunflower oil for frying

Preparation methodology

Take the Ghisanativa pan and boil the water with the butter, sugar and salt.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour in the sifted rice flour and potato starch all at once.

Stir vigorously to mix the ingredients, then put the saucepan back on the heat and, while continuing to stir, cook the mixture for a couple of minutes.

In some cases, the rice flour and potato starch will jellify on contact with the boiling water and you will have a lumpy mixture; don’t panic! Keep stirring energetically. If you can’t get a smooth and homogeneous dough, go ahead anyway.

Pour the mixture into a planetary mixer or a large bowl and begin to work it with electric whisks while it is warm. Add the flavourings and gradually incorporate the eggs, adding the next egg only when the previous one has been completely absorbed and continue to mix until the mixture is smooth.

Heat the seed oil – at least 1 litre – in your Ghisanativa and bring it to a temperature of 160°/165°C maximum and with the help of 2 spoons soaked in oil, fry some portions of the mixture, not too big.

Stir the fritters continuously with a skimmer or spider until they have turned a nice golden colour. Drain them on absorbent paper and once they are cold, fill them as desired.

Below is my recipe for a zabaglione Chantilly cream.

The eggnog cream

Ingredients

• 200 g dry Marsala
• 2 egg yolks
• 75 g sugar
• 23 g cornflour
• 200 g whipped cream

Prepare the cream

Put the Marsala wine in a saucepan and bring it to the boil.

In the meantime, mix the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl using a whisk. Then add the cornflour and mix until the mixture is smooth.

When the marsala has come to the boil, pour a small part over the eggs to dilute them, stirring constantly, then finish by adding the remaining marsala.

Put the marsala mixture back into the saucepan and return it to the heat, stirring well with a whisk until the zabaglione cream has thickened – it will only take a few minutes.

Pour the cream into a clean bowl and cover with cling film.

Leave to cool well.

Once your zabaglione cream is cold, stir vigorously with a whisk and add the whipped cream a little at a time.

Put the resulting cream in a piping bag with a small plain or star-shaped nozzle and fill your fritters.

Michela Oppo

“Cooking teacher, Venetian by adoption, born and lived until the age of 18 in the city of La Spezia from a Sardinian father and a Ligurian mother, from La Spezia to be precise, with a little Piedmontese blood. I left pieces of my heart in Shanghai, Buenos Aires and London. There are many reasons why I cook, to feed and to nourish myself of course, but I think I cook above all for love, for love of my loved ones and why not, to be loved in turn. I love the tango, the sea, books that make you dream, ceramics, fans, languages and… cooking and baking of course!”

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