Regional Recipe
Pignolata
Italian fried dough balls in honey
These are little balls of fried dough rolled in warm honey and piled into a mound.
Tested and written by Erika A. Cochran
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Prep
35 minutes
Cook
25 minutes
Serves
6–8
Difficulty
Moderate
Region
Calabria and Sicily
What you’ll need
Ingredients
Written for 6–8.
Showing quantities at 1× the original recipe.
- 3¼ cups plain flour
- 3 eggs
- 3¼ tbsp sugar
- 2⅔ tbsp olive oil
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Oil, for frying
- ⅞ cup honey
- Toasted almonds or citrus zest, to finish
At the stove
Instructions
Work the flour, eggs, sugar, oil and zest into a firm dough and rest 20 minutes.
Roll into thin ropes and cut into pieces the size of a hazelnut.
Fry in batches at 340°F until golden, then drain well.
Warm the honey gently until fluid but not boiling.
Turn the fried dough through the honey until coated, then pile it on a plate while warm.
Finish with almonds or zest and let it set before serving.
Recipe notes
Do not let the honey boil hard or the finished sweet turns brittle and bitter.
Shape it with wet hands — the honey is sticky as it cools.
Context
Honey-bound fried dough is documented across Calabria and Sicily under names including pignolata and struffoli, generally made for holidays.
Sources: Editorial adaptation of documented southern Italian baking traditions, Casa Magnelli Kitchen
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