Recipe for Apulian Christmas Cartellate

Ricetta delle cartellate pugliesi di Natale
December brings the Christmas spirit, the desire to spend time in the kitchen preparing traditional desserts and recipes, and when you say Christmas in Puglia, you mean cartellate!
 Cartellate from Puglia are a typical dessert of this period: they have been around in Puglia and Basilicata since ancient times, and according to Christian tradition, their shape represents the halo or swaddling clothes that wrapped Baby Jesus in the cradle, as well as the crown of thorns at the moment of the crucifixion.
 They are rose-shaped fritters with a strong flavour typical of Apulian cuisine.

This Christmas dessert has distant cousins ​​in Calabria, where nèvole or crispelle are prepared, and in Sardinia, where we find orilletas.
 The name cartellate recalls paper, “incartellate” meaning wrapped up, due to their typical shape.
 Depending on the dialect spoken in the various areas of Puglia, they then take on slightly different inclinations, accents and names.


Cartellate recipe and procedure


Let's see how to prepare cartellate at home .

Ingredients:

  • 600g of flour

  • 60ml of extra virgin olive oil, we recommend using the Monocultivar Olivastra from Frantoio D'Orazio

  • a pinch of salt

  • 210ml of still white wine


Procedure:

  • Let's start with the dough: prepare the classic fountain with the flour and add the previously lukewarm liquids (the wine must not be cold from the fridge) and start kneading

  • Create a dough ball and divide it into rectangles. Work them with a pasta machine (also called a Papera or Nonna Papera): first until the dough is thicker, then gradually thinner. Start at hole 2 and work your way up to hole 5, thus obtaining a thinner dough.

  • Once you have obtained the thinnest pastry, you can cut it into long, narrow strips and pinch them to create the typical spaces of cartellate.

  • Once the entire strip has been pinched, create the cartellata roll until the entire dough is used up

  • let the cartellate dry on a perforated frame overnight

  • the next day they are fried and dipped in cooked wine




Apulian Christmas cartellate recipe


How to enjoy Apulian cartellate


Besides cooked wine, another popular way to enjoy cartellate is with warm honey: the flavor will be less intense and distinctive, and also suitable for little ones!


How to store cartellate


You can store the cartellate, shaped and raw, for a week. However, we recommend frying them and immersing them in vin cotto only when you're ready to enjoy them.

If you prefer a salty taste, we recommend you try making Apulian taralli !