Fried dough, also known as zeppoles, are easy to make with leftover pizza dough. If you participated in last month’s Full Moon Baking Club challenge, you’ll have no trouble making these Italian doughnuts because I used the same recipe. Instead of making pizza, cut the dough into little rectangle shapes and then fry them in a pot of oil. After, toss them in a bag with some powdered sugar for a slightly sweet coating. Mine got drizzled with some Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup circa 2017, cause I found a random bottle of it the back of the fridge and thought, heck, it’s 2020! It’s a year for taking risks. Or not… but does chocolate syrup even go bad?

Zeppole Dough Recipe

Ingredients for making the dough:

3 cups flour
2 tsp yeast (rapid rise and dry active are both fine)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tbsp oil (for the dough mix)

Ingredients for frying the zeppoles:

1 quart of vegetable oil or another high heat oil for frying the dough
1 tbsp powdered sugar (or to taste) for tossing the zeppoles

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, make the dough by combining the dry ingredients.
Add the warm water and tablespoon of oil and start mixing.
Mix until the dough starts to come together and pull away from the bowl, and then dump out onto a lightly floured surface.
Knead the dough until it comes together and forms a ball.
Continue to knead for about 10 minutes until the ingredients are well combined.
Divide the dough into into 4 pieces and reshape into balls. Lay the balls on a greased sheet tray and then cover with a damp towel till they double in size (about an hour).
After they rise, you can then make two or three personal pizzas (by continuing here at step 7) but keep at least one dough ball for the zeppoles.
For the zeppoles, take a large heavy pot (I used a dutch oven) and pour in the frying oil so that it's at least two inches deep, and heat it to between 350F and 370F. Anything below 350 will take too long to fry causing the zeppoles to absorb the oil.
With your zepploe dough, flatten it out as if you were going to begin making the crust of a pizza. Stretch it out gently rather than rolling it because you want to keep the dough light and fluff. It's ok if the dough is not circular. You just want to lay the dough out so the thickness remains even throughout.
Next, take a pizza slicer and slice the dough into strips about 1 inch wide.
Then, slicing from the other direction, cut the dough at 1.5 inch so you end up with a series of 1 x 1.5 inch rectangular dough pieces. (It's ok if they aren't perfect.)
Once the oil is hot, gently using a spoon, drop the dough pieces into the oil. You can fry several at a time. Just be sure not to overcrowd them keeping plenty of space for them to move around in the pot.
Fry for roughly 5 minutes or until they float on top of the oil. Be sure to flip them over as necessary so that they fry on all sides.
After frying, remove the zeppoles and lay them on a plate with a paper towel to help soak up any extra oil.
When you are finished frying them, you can gently toss them in a paper bag with powdered sugar for a light coating.

I tossed my zeppoles in powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate syrup but I think you could have fun exploring other option. Cinnamon and sugar I’m sure would taste just as delicious, so feel free to get experimental. I’d love to hear what you come up with.

Happy full moon! I challenge you to make these before October 1, 2020 which is the next full moon. You have almost a month from today to give these a shot. Good luck!