First of all, to prepare our delicious struffoli, we dedicate ourselves to the dough, so we sift the flour onto a pastry board, or into a large bowl, add the salt, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and finally place the butter, previously cut into cubes, in the centre. .
We knead everything, add the eggs one at a time and continuing to knead we also add the egg yolks, the aniseed liqueur, the previously grated lemon and orange zest.
We knead everything very well for at least ten minutes until we obtain a smooth and homogeneous dough, then cover it with transparent film and let it rest for about 40 minutes at room temperature.
Once the resting time has passed, we take a part of the dough and form small loaves of about 1 cm thick. Using a very sharp knife we cut out small pieces of 1 cm thick and repeat the same operation for the whole dough.
Let’s then dedicate ourselves to frying: in a large pan with high sides, bring plenty of oil to a temperature of around 160°C. We dip a few pieces at a time, in this way the oil will always be hot, and turn them often during cooking, after about 3 minutes or when they are golden brown, drain them in a tray lined with kitchen paper to remove the excess oil.
Prepare the seasoning
Let’s move on to the seasoning, pour the honey with the sugar into a pan, preferably non-stick, and bring everything to the boil, then turn off the heat and leave to cool. Once the honey is lukewarm, add the lemon zest, the orange zest and the candied orange, previously cut into cubes and mix everything together.
Let’s dive into the struffoli and mix very well. Our struffoli are now ready to be served decorated with orange zest, some candied cherries or some colored courgettes.