Cenci - Tuscan Carnival fried dough

Pour the flour onto a wooden pastry board or on a large working surface, make a well in the centre and add all the other ingredients.
Knead all the ingredients with your hands, as if to make homemade pasta. Knead it at least 10 minutes, until the dough becomes very elastic and smooth, and it no longer sticks to your hands. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes, wrapped in a kitchen towel.
Roll out the dough with a rolling pin or with the pasta machine to make long and paper-thin sheets of pasta, about 1 or 2 mm thick, so that the cenci will be feather-light when fried. Use a tiny amount of flour to help to roll out the dough, but try to dust it off or shake it off from the cenci, because it will be the first thing to burn in the hot frying oil, giving an unpleasant burnt flour taste to our cenci.
Cut the pasta sheets with a knife or a wheel in strips about a span long and 3 inches in width.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan and when it reaches 180°C deep fry the cenci. If you don't have a cooking thermometer, use some dough scraps to check when the oil is ready: dip a scrap in the oil. It will be hot enough when many tiny bubbles immediately surround the piece of dough.
Fry the cenci in batches for about 30 seconds per side, checking them often and turning them with frying tongs.
Carefully remove the cenci from the oil, drain them for a few minutes on a dish lined with kitchen paper, and then dust them with sugar. They are delicious warm, but you will recognize all the flavours and aromas just when cold!

Cenci - Tuscan Carnival fried dough

Ingredients

Instructions