Italian Calabria Fried Honey Sweets | Turdilli Calabresi
Updated: 6 days ago
Turdilli are what a Calabrian house smells of in the second half of December. Small lengths of a firm dough made with white wine and olive oil, each one rolled once down the ridges of a gnocchi board, are fried until deeply blistered and then turned through warm honey or mosto cotto until every ridge carries a thin coat of it. They are eaten by the handful from a platter that is topped up for two weeks, and they are almost never made in small quantities.
There is no butter, no egg and no milk anywhere in them. The fat is olive oil, mixed into the dough and then met again in the fryer, and the liquid is wine. That single choice governs everything: the dough is firm and slightly stiff, it takes a ridge cleanly, it fries into something crisp and hollow sounding rather than cakey, and it carries a faint vinous edge that the honey then softens without erasing.
The technical work is in three places and nowhere else. The dough must be hydrated exactly enough to shape without cracking. The oil must stay inside a narrow window so the interior cooks before the surface darkens. And the honey must be warm enough to run and cool enough not to be absorbed, because a turdillo is meant to be coated, never soaked.
Yield: about 36 to 40 pieces. Serves: 8 to 10. Prep: 30 minutes. Dough rest: 20 minutes. Frying and glazing: about 25 minutes. Settling: 15 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 30 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: dessert. Region: Calabria, made across the province from Cosenza to the Ionian coast.
The Story
Calabria calls them turdilli in most of the province, turdiddri in the Cosentino dialect, and cuddhurieddhi or turdiddruzzi in pockets of the south, and the variation in the name is a fair guide to how local the sweet is. They belong to the Christmas novena, the nine days before the feast, when the fryer came out in the kitchen and successive batches of fried sweets were made for the household and for anyone who came through the door. A platter of turdilli sat out for the whole of the period and was refilled rather than replaced.
The coating is the most Calabrian thing about them. Floral honey is used everywhere, but the older and more characteristic finish is mosto cotto, grape must reduced for hours until it is dark, thick and faintly bitter, or the fig syrup that southern Calabria calls miele di fichi in a region that has always had more fig trees than beehives. Both were made at home in autumn from fruit that would otherwise have been wasted, and both carry a depth that commercial honey does not: a Calabrian turdillo glazed in mosto cotto tastes of caramel and dried fruit, and it is noticeably less sweet than it looks.
They are frequently grouped with the Abruzzese cicerchiata and the Neapolitan struffoli, and the three do share a honey and a fryer, but they are not the same object. Struffoli and cicerchiata are small spheres massed together into a mound or a ring, eaten as one construction, and their dough is usually enriched with egg. A turdillo is an individual piece with its own ridged surface, glazed one by one and served loose, and its dough is made with wine and olive oil in the older southern manner. The ridges are the point: they hold a coating in a thin even film where a smooth sphere would simply let it pool.
Ingredients
For the dough
All purpose flour, 3 1/3 cups (400 g), plus a little more only if the dough sticks
Granulated sugar, 2 tbsp (30 g)
Baking powder, 1 tsp (4 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp (1.5 g), traditional in many family versions
Finely grated zest of 1 untreated orange
Dry or lightly aromatic white wine, 2/3 cup (150 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
For frying
Peanut or sunflower oil, about 6 cups (1.4 L), enough for 2 1/2 inches (6 cm) in the pot
For the glaze
Floral or chestnut honey, or mosto cotto fig syrup, 1 cup (300 g)
Fresh orange juice, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
For finishing
Coloured nonpareils, 2 tbsp, optional and used sparingly
Finely chopped toasted almonds, 2 tbsp, optional in place of the nonpareils
Finely grated orange zest, from 1/2 orange, optional
Preparation
Combine the dry ingredients with the orange zest
Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a wide bowl and whisk them together thoroughly before anything wet arrives, because baking powder that stays in a pocket will blister that one piece in the fryer. Grate the orange zest straight into the flour and work it through with your fingers until the flour smells of orange and no clumps of zest remain. Take only the coloured layer of the peel: the white pith underneath is bitter and it does not soften in frying.
Warm the wine with the oil and bring the dough together
Warm the white wine and the extra virgin olive oil together in a small pan until they are lukewarm to a fingertip, around 100°F (38°C), and no warmer. Warm liquid disperses the oil through the flour far more evenly than cold liquid does, but anything approaching hot will start to set the flour and the dough goes lumpy. Pour it into the well in one steady stream, stirring with a fork in widening circles, until a shaggy mass forms and there is no loose flour left in the bottom of the bowl.
Knead to a firm smooth dough
Turn it onto the work surface and knead for 6 to 8 minutes with the heel of your hand, pushing forward and folding back. What you want is a dough that is smooth, matte and distinctly firm: softer than pasta dough, appreciably tighter than bread dough, and no longer sticky to a clean palm. Resist adding flour unless it genuinely clings to the surface. Excess flour at this stage is the single commonest cause of turdilli that come out of the fryer hard instead of crisp.
Rest the dough covered
Wrap the dough or cover it with an inverted bowl and leave it 20 minutes at room temperature. There is no yeast here and nothing is rising; the rest exists so the flour finishes absorbing the wine and so the gluten you have just built relaxes. A rested dough rolls into a rope without springing back and holds a ridge cleanly, while an unrested one fights you at every stage and loses its pattern within a minute of being shaped.
Roll, cut and ridge each piece
Divide the dough into four and keep the pieces you are not using covered. Roll each into a rope about 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick and cut it into lengths of about 1 inch (2.5 cm). Lay one piece on the back of a fork or on a gnocchi board and roll it away from you with the pad of your thumb using firm, single pressure. You are after shallow ridges on one face and a slight hollow on the other, not a flattened disc. One decisive roll gives a cleaner ridge than three tentative ones. Lay the shaped pieces on a floured tray under a cloth.
Bring the frying oil to temperature
Pour at least 2 1/2 inches (6 cm) of peanut or sunflower oil into a heavy pot, leaving a good hand's width of clear space above it, and bring it to 345°F (174°C) with a thermometer clipped in place. Depth matters more than people expect: a shallow pan loses heat the instant the dough goes in and the pieces sit on the bottom instead of floating. Use a neutral oil with a high smoke point and keep the olive oil for the dough, where its flavour belongs.
Fry in small batches
Lower in six to eight pieces at a time, never more, and hold the oil between 340°F and 350°F (171°C to 177°C) throughout. They will sink, then rise and begin to blister. Turn them as they colour and fry 3 to 4 minutes in total, until they are an even deep gold and feel light and hollow when you lift them. Drain on a rack set over a tray rather than on paper, which traps steam against the underside and softens the crust you have just built. Let the oil climb back to 345°F (174°C) before the next batch.
Warm the honey and glaze while the pieces are still warm
Put the honey or mosto cotto in a wide pan with the orange juice and warm it over low heat only until it runs freely, around 150°F (65°C). It must never simmer. Slide in a batch of drained turdilli while they are warm to the hand but no longer releasing frying oil, and turn them gently with two spoons for 20 to 30 seconds until every ridge carries a film of glaze. Lift them out and let the excess drip back into the pan before they go onto the platter.
Settle and finish
Spread the glazed pieces in a single layer on a platter or a marble slab and leave them 15 minutes for the coating to set to a tacky shine. This is the moment for the nonpareils or the chopped toasted almonds, if you want them, because they will stick now and will not once the glaze has hardened. Use a very restrained hand: turdilli should taste of fried dough, orange, wine and honey, not of sugar decoration. A fine grating of orange zest over the platter is the better finish.
Plating
At home they are served at room temperature on a large platter, piled loose and generously, as part of a Christmas table that also carries nuts, dried figs, mandarins and a bottle of something sweet. That is the correct way to serve them and no restaurant arrangement improves on it. Put the platter in the middle of the table and let people take them with their fingers.
For a plated dessert, count five or six pieces onto a warm toned ceramic plate, grouped rather than lined up, so the irregular glossy shapes read as a small heap. Draw a thin thread of mosto cotto or fig syrup across one side of the plate and grate a little orange zest over the top. A spoonful of thick sheep milk ricotta beaten smooth with a teaspoon of honey sits well beside them and gives a cool counterpoint to the fried dough.
What to avoid in both cases is stacking them deep in a bowl. The pieces at the bottom take the weight of everything above, the glaze runs down and pools, and the crust softens where they touch. A wide shallow platter in one or two layers keeps them exactly as they left the pan, which is the whole reason for the work.
Professional Technique
A dough built on wine and olive oil behaves quite differently from one built on egg and butter, and understanding why explains almost every instruction in this recipe. The olive oil coats a proportion of the flour and limits gluten development, which is what stops the fried piece from being tough, while the wine supplies water for the gluten that does form, alcohol that evaporates in the fryer and leaves behind small voids, and enough acidity to tenderise the crumb slightly. Because there is no egg to set and no dairy to brown, the structure is entirely flour, oil and the vapour generated in the first thirty seconds of frying. That is why the dough must be firm: a soft dough has too much free water, it bubbles violently on contact with the oil, and it comes out greasy and irregular.
Frying temperature is the second control and it is unforgiving in both directions. Below about 340°F (171°C) the dough does not generate steam fast enough to push outward against the oil, the surface never seals, and fat moves inward instead: the result is heavy and oily at the centre. Above about 350°F (177°C) the exterior colours in under two minutes while the interior is still raw, and no amount of extra time will fix it because the outside will be burnt first. Small batches are not a matter of tidiness. Six to eight pieces drop the oil temperature by perhaps five degrees and it recovers in seconds, whereas twenty pieces will take it down forty degrees and hold it there for a minute, which is long enough to ruin the batch.
The glaze is the third and the one most often got wrong. Honey at around 150°F (65°C) is fluid enough to flow into every ridge and viscous enough to stay there as a film perhaps half a millimetre thick. Pushed to a simmer it thins dramatically, runs off the piece and is drawn into the still porous crust, so the sweet turns sticky and damp within the hour and the fried texture disappears entirely. Overheated honey also loses its aromatic top notes and gains a flat caramel taste that buries the orange and the wine. The pastry must be warm for the same reason the honey must be warm, so that neither shocks the other into setting on contact, but it must have stopped shedding frying oil, because oil and honey will not stay together on the surface.
Texture and Moisture Control
The target texture is a thin crisp shell over a tender, fully cooked and slightly open interior, with no dense uncooked seam at the centre. Size is what makes it achievable: a piece of about 1 inch (2.5 cm) cut from a rope 3/4 inch (2 cm) thick has enough mass to stay tender and is thin enough to cook through in the same three to four minutes it takes the outside to reach deep gold. Cut them longer or roll the rope fatter and the two timings separate, which is why oversized turdilli are almost always raw in the middle.
Drainage decides how much of that crispness survives. A rack lets steam escape from all sides while the piece is at its most vulnerable, in the first minute out of the oil, whereas absorbent paper holds a warm damp layer against the underside and the crust goes leathery there. Leave them only long enough to stop dripping, one or two minutes, because a piece left to cool completely will not take the glaze properly and will need to go into honey that is hotter than it should be to compensate.
After glazing, moisture moves in one direction only, from the honey into the crust, and the job is slowing it down. Spreading the pieces in a single layer lets the coating set into a firm tacky film that then acts as a barrier. Piling them warm does the opposite: trapped heat keeps the glaze liquid, it wicks into the dough, and by morning the whole platter is soft. Fully glazed turdilli are at their best on the day they are made and still very good on the second, which is why Calabrian households fry in batches through the novena rather than making everything at once.
Professional Mise en Place
This is holiday production work, so the organising principle is that the shaping is finished before a drop of oil is heated. Once the fryer is running you should be doing nothing but frying, draining and glazing in a steady rotation.
Equipment and tools
Heavy deep pot, cast iron or thick stainless, and a clip on frying thermometer
Gnocchi board, or a dinner fork with widely spaced tines
Spider skimmer and a cooling rack set over a sheet tray
Wide low sided pan for the honey and two spoons for turning
Bench scraper, floured trays and a clean cloth to cover the shaped pieces
Prepared ahead
Dough mixed, kneaded and rested, up to 4 hours ahead, wrapped at room temperature
Whole batch rolled, cut and ridged before frying, held on floured trays under a cloth
Orange zested and juiced, honey or mosto cotto weighed into the glazing pan
Frying oil measured into the pot and the thermometer clipped in position
Turdilli fried and left unglazed, up to 2 days ahead, stored airtight once cold
Service setup
Oil holding at 345°F (174°C) and allowed to recover between every batch
Rack and tray beside the pot so drained pieces never sit in their own steam
Honey pan on the lowest burner setting, checked with the thermometer, never simmering
Wide platter or marble slab ready for a single layer of glazed pieces
Nonpareils, chopped almonds and a grater within reach for the fifteen minute window
Chef Tips
Choose the wine as if you were going to drink it. A dry white with real aromatic character, or a lightly aromatic one, perfumes the dough in a way that a thin cooking wine cannot, and its acidity is part of what keeps the crumb tender. What you do not want is anything so alcoholic or so oaked that the fried dough tastes spirituous.
Fry one piece first, before the batch, and cut it open after it has cooled for a minute. The interior should be dry, open and uniformly pale, with no glossy band of uncooked dough at the centre. That one test tells you whether your oil temperature and your piece size agree with each other, and it costs thirty seconds against forty pieces.
Use mosto cotto, or half mosto cotto and half honey, if you want the version that tastes most of Calabria. Grape must or fig syrup is darker, less sweet and more complex than floral honey, and it stands up to the cinnamon and orange rather than sitting on top of them. Thin it with the orange juice exactly as you would honey.
If a rope cracks along its edge as you roll it, the dough is too dry and the remedy is a teaspoon of wine kneaded in, not a longer rest. If the ridges disappear within seconds of shaping, it is too wet and needs a scant tablespoon of flour. Correct the dough before you shape forty pieces badly.
Common Mistakes
Crowding the fryer. Twenty pieces at once take the oil down by forty degrees and hold it there, so the dough absorbs fat before its surface can seal and the whole batch is heavy. Six to eight at a time, with the oil allowed to recover between batches, is the difference between crisp and greasy.
Working extra flour into the dough. Flour added on the board to stop stickiness tightens the dough past the point of tenderness and the fried pieces come out hard and dense. Knead through the tacky stage instead; it passes after about four minutes.
Cutting the pieces too large. A piece much over 1 inch (2.5 cm) cannot cook through in the time the exterior takes to reach deep gold, and you get a raw seam at the centre under a perfect crust. Keep the rope at 3/4 inch (2 cm) and the cut short.
Simmering the honey. Boiled honey thins, soaks into the crust instead of coating it, and loses its aroma to a flat caramel note. Hold it at about 150°F (65°C), fluid but never bubbling, and take the pan off the heat between batches.
Glazing pieces that are still shedding oil. Frying oil on the surface will not let the honey adhere and the coating slides off in patches. Drain for a minute or two on a rack first, so the pieces are warm but no longer wet.
Skipping the 20 minute rest. An unrested dough springs back as you roll and the ridges you press into it vanish almost at once, so the glaze has nothing to hold onto and pools instead of coating.
Piling them up while warm. Trapped steam keeps the glaze liquid, it wicks into the crust, and a platter that was crisp at midnight is soft by breakfast. A single layer until the coating has set, then careful storage.
Wine Pairing
Greco di Bianco DOC: The one bottle written for this plate. Made on the Ionian coast at the southern tip of Calabria from grapes half dried on mats, it is amber, unctuous and scented with bergamot, dried apricot and orange peel, which is precisely the citrus register the dough is working in. Its residual sugar matches the honey without exceeding it, and a firm saline finish keeps the pairing from going flat. Pour it small and cool, around 54°F (12°C).
Cirò Bianco DOC: The everyday white of the same coast, dry and made from Greco Bianco, and the choice when you want relief rather than reinforcement. Its brisk lemon and white flower acidity cuts straight through the fried surface and the honey film, resetting the palate between pieces in a way no sweet wine can. It is also the honest answer to how turdilli are actually drunk in Calabria, which is with whatever white is open.
Melissa Bianco DOC: From the hills just north of Cirò and a shade rounder in the mouth, with a little more body and a soft almond note on the finish. That nuttiness runs naturally alongside the toasted almonds if you use them for the garnish, and there is enough weight to carry the cinnamon without the wine thinning out. Serve it at 50°F (10°C) and it holds its own against the sweetness longer than a lighter white would.
Bivongi Bianco DOC: A small denomination in the Stilaro valley in the province of Reggio Calabria, blending Greco with Guardavalle and Malvasia, and worth seeking out for its herbal, faintly bitter edge. That bitterness is the useful part here: it pushes back against a glaze made with chestnut honey or mosto cotto, both of which carry their own bitter undertone, so the two meet as equals instead of competing.
Cirò Rosso Classico DOC: Gaglioppo for anyone who wants a red at the end of a Calabrian Christmas meal, and it needs a young example rather than a riserva. Its tannin is fine and its acidity high, both of which scrub fried fat off the palate, while the wild cherry and dried herb aromatics sit comfortably beside orange and cinnamon. Serve it at 60°F (16°C), cooler than a full bodied red, or the alcohol will read as heat against the sugar.
Storage & Reheating
Glazed turdilli are at their peak on the day they are made and still good for 2 to 3 days. Store them in a single layer, or with a sheet of parchment between layers, in a covered container at cool room temperature. Do not refrigerate them: the cabinet is humid, the crust goes limp and the glaze turns cloudy and dull, and nothing about a fried sweet improves at 41°F (5°C). Keep them away from the stove and from any window that gets sun.
For anything made ahead, fry the pieces and leave them unglazed. Cooled completely and kept airtight they hold for 2 days at room temperature and freeze well for up to 1 month in a rigid container. To bring them back, spread them on a sheet pan and give them 5 to 6 minutes at 300°F (150°C), or 10 minutes from frozen, until they are hot and crisp again. Let them stand a minute or two, then glaze exactly as you would fresh ones.
Once glazed, do not reheat them hard. Honey scorches well before the interior of a coated piece warms through, and a burnt glaze is unrecoverable. If they have gone soft, the honest fix is to accept them as they are and serve them with coffee, or to plan better next time and keep half the batch unglazed. The glazing pan itself cleans easily with hot water if you do it before the honey sets.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 10 servings of about 4 pieces each, allowing for normal frying oil absorption:
Calories: 390 kcal
Total Fat: 16 g
Saturated Fat: 2 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 13 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 150 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 56 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 24 g
Added Sugars: 23 g
Protein: 5 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin E and monounsaturated fat from the olive oil, iron, manganese and selenium from the flour, vitamin C from the orange, small amounts of potassium and antioxidants from the honey or mosto cotto
These figures are estimates. The two variables that move them most are how much frying oil the dough takes up, which depends almost entirely on holding the temperature, and how heavily the pieces are glazed. There is no dairy and no egg in this recipe, so it is naturally lactose free and, glazed with mosto cotto rather than honey, entirely plant based.
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