Recreating a sweet yellow memory!
ingredients for 20 pieces (total cost about 4 € with organic ingredients)
- 175 g cornmeal
- 50 g pastry flour
- 25 g cornstarch (maizena), or potato starch
- 100 g butter
- 80 g superfine sugar
- 1 egg (50 g)
- 60 ml milk
- 1,5 g baking powder
- 1,5 g ammonia
- a pinch of salt
- 50 g sultana raisins
- 30 ml grappa or citrus fruit liqueur (kumquat, orange etc.)
- icing sugar for dusting (plain or vanilla scented)
A cold foggy December morning at the Venetian lagoon. The vaporetto made its 1st stop.
-“Burano”, was the announcement by the pilota. We got off. The fog was so thick, we could barely see at a 1 m distance. Soon, a strong smell of ammonia and vanilla sugar, caught us by the nose. We could not help but follow it. As we were approaching close enough to that smell, we saw a crowded queue waiting outside a tiny store at the side of a small canal.
– What are you all waiting for, Vangelis asked the last one waiting in the queue.
“Zaletti, they just got out of the oven”, he answered.
– Zaletti? Vangelis repeated.
“Yes, it means yellow (gialleti) in the Venetian dialect” …
After waiting for about a 10 minutes, our turn had come.
– Due zaletti, per favore!
– “Con piacere!” ….
We took the first bite … What a pleasure! I cannot describe with words how they tasted. As soon as this soft, warm and friable bite reached my palate, immediately corn, vanilla, raisin and grappa flavors started dancing, each one trying to lead the dance. I will never forget it…
This is the strongest memory I carry from our first trip to Venice, many many years ago.
As soon as we returned to Greece, I started making various versions of zaletti, determined to recreate this beautiful memory of mine. I tried to make them with just corn flour, with a mixture of flours, with flours and starches, with and without eggs, with whole eggs or just yolks, with much or little milk, with no leaveners or just baking powder, as well as baking powder and ammonia mixed.
The version I am presenting you, is the one that approaches the most, the flavor and texture of the zaletti I had tasted that cold and foggy morning at Burano and I prepare them this way ever since.
So, to make them, we begin by placing the raisins in a bowl with the grappa or liqueur, adding enough warm water to fully cover them. If we don’t want to use alcohol, we can just soak them in warm water. We let them soak for about 20-30 minutes, then we strain them well and we dry them with kitchen paper. We also place the butter in bain marie to gently melt it, then we let it become lukewarm.
Meanwhile, in a wide bowl we sieve all the dry ingredients (flours, sugar, ammonia and baking powder) and we mix them for a few seconds all together. We briefly mix the egg with the salt to dilute it. We add the melted butter, along with the milk and egg (both at room temperature) and we mix, until the dough comes together. Finally, we add raisins and we incorporate them into the dough.
To form the zaletti we divide the dough in 20 equal parts (about 28-29 g each) and we shape them into small oval cookies.
We arrange the shaped zaletti on a baking tray covered with parchment paper, leaving a reasonable space between them, in order to allow them to puff and spread.
We bake the zaletti at a preheated oven – 180 o C for a static function or 160 o C for fan function – for about 15 minutes, then we lower the temperature to 150 or 130 respectively and we continue baking for another 5 minutes. Be sure not to undercook them, because if so, the ammonia will not evaporate, and the cookies will have an unpleasant aftertaste.
We remove the zaletti from the oven and we transfer them on a wire rack to cool a bit, then we sprinkle them with icing sugar.
