Zeppole

The zeppola di San Giuseppe is made from choux paste (water, butter, flour, eggs) piped through a star nozzle into a double-layered ring with a hollow in the middle. Pastry cream goes in the hollow, a syrupy amarena cherry goes on the cream, and icing sugar goes over everything.

There are two legitimate versions. The fried one is the original: crisp outside, moist inside, deeper in flavour. The baked one appeared in the 1970s as a lighter option and now sells in roughly equal numbers in Naples. Asking for one or the other is completely normal and no test of orthodoxy.

The complication is the word itself. 'Zeppole' names several unrelated fried things across southern Italy: rustic Apulian rings, savoury Neapolitan seaweed fritters, and, in the Italian-American diaspora, plain balls of fried dough dusted with sugar. If someone says zeppole in New Jersey and someone says zeppole in Naples, they are usually not talking about the same object.

The shell tastes of eggs and butter with a faint fried sweetness, and it is structurally hollow, so the first bite gives way with almost no resistance and then collapses. The cream is thick, yellow with yolk, scented with lemon zest or real vanilla, and just sweet enough. The cherry is sharp and syrupy and does the job that acid always does in a rich pastry: it stops the whole thing from being one note.

Eaten within an hour of assembly the contrast is the point: crisp against cool and soft. Left for a few hours the cream soaks into the shell and it becomes something else, still pleasant but sodden.

The baked version tastes drier and cleaner, closer to a profiterole. The fried one tastes richer and slightly nutty from the oil, and it is what the pastry was designed to be.

Buy them or make them, but fill them at the last possible moment. Cream against choux is a countdown: within an hour the shell has begun to soften, within three it is gone. Neapolitan bakeries fill to order for exactly this reason.

If you are frying at home, fry in two stages. First at 150-160C so the ring inflates and dries through without colouring, then at 180C to brown and crisp. Pipe each ring onto a small square of baking paper and lower the paper into the oil: it detaches after a few seconds and lifts out with tongs, and it is the only way to keep the shape.

Serve them at room temperature, not fridge-cold; twenty minutes out of the refrigerator is about right. Eat them with an espresso rather than with tea, which is what actually happens in Naples.

Unfilled shells freeze raw, already piped onto trays, for two months, and go straight from the freezer into the fryer or the oven with two extra minutes.

Filled zeppole are a same-day item: eight hours, twelve at the outside, and the first hour after filling is when the pastry is at its crispest. The cream is egg based, so a filled one goes into the fridge, and the fridge is also what softens it: moisture migrates out of the cream into the ring, and the ridges lose their crackle. Take it out twenty minutes before serving. Skip cling film, which holds damp against the surface; a cake dome or a rigid-lidded tray works better. Anything bought boxed carries the bakery date.

Unfilled crowns keep much better. Uncovered at room temperature they hold around twenty-four hours, going steadily drier and firmer, and five minutes in a 160°C (320°F) oven crisps them again. Piped raw onto trays and frozen, they hold about two months. Pastry cream keeps three days in the fridge with film pressed flat to its surface; if water separates on top, the emulsion has broken and stirring will not bring it back.

The crown should carry the sharp, even ridges left by the piping nozzle. A smooth surface means the batter was too slack, and the pastry will be chewy instead of crisp. Pick one up: it should feel oddly light for its size, because the inside is hollow.

The fried version crackles under the teeth. One that gives way with no resistance and leaves your fingers greasy either went into oil that was not hot enough or has been sitting for hours. A faint sheen on the surface is normal; an oil stain spreading across the paper tray is not. The cream is the second tell: yellow from yolks rather than from colouring, thick enough to hold the cherry without running, and scented with lemon or real vanilla. Very white, very firm cream comes from a powdered mix.

Abroad the word covers two different things. In American Italian bakeries and at street fairs, zeppole are usually small balls of fried dough rolled in sugar. The Neapolitan zeppola di San Giuseppe is the piped ring topped with cream and one dark amarena cherry.

In the US, Italian-American bakeries in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Boston sell the Neapolitan style around Saint Joseph's day in March, typically 3.50 to 6 dollars each, and the fried-dough style at feasts all summer. Ask specifically for 'zeppole di San Giuseppe' if it is the cream-filled ring you want, because in most of those shops the default meaning is the other one.

In the UK, Italian delicatessens and bakeries in London, Manchester and Bedford make them in March to order, at around 3.50 to 5 pounds each. Outside that window you will not find them, and a bakery offering them in June is selling something frozen.

Wherever you buy them, judge the piping: the star nozzle grooves should be sharp and even, and the shell should feel improbably light. The cream should be yellow from yolks rather than pale from a mix, thick enough to hold the cherry without running, and there should be exactly one cherry. Two or three cherries and a slick of syrup usually means something is being covered up.

Naples, in the week around 19 March. The historic pasticcerie on via Toledo, around piazza San Domenico Maggiore and in the Rione Sanità put out trays from seven in the morning, and by midday you take what is left. From the 17th onwards most shops work to pre-order.

The distinction to make on the ground is between a pasticceria and a friggitoria. Neapolitan fry shops make the fried version to order and fill it in front of you; eaten standing up, thirty seconds out of the oil, it is the best version of this pastry that exists.

In Bari and the Salento the same day brings Apulian zeppole: a rougher dough, often with boiled potato, smaller, and sold in bakeries as much as in pastry shops. In Palermo, 19 March means sfincia, with sheep's ricotta instead of custard. Doing Naples and Palermo in consecutive years is the best way to understand how differently one feast day is read across the south.