Hope the Italian friends won’t be mad at me after reading this post, but today I am going to say it: I baked the Carnival castagnole with hageslag, that is, with the codette di cioccolato or chocolate sprinkles.
I know, it might be because I have been living in TulipLand for almost 8 years now and I might have some influence from the Nederlander. Yet, when last Sunday, in occasion of Carnival baking plans for Fat Tuesday, he told me: Why don’t we cover the castagnole with hageslag? I seriously thought: it could work! And it did.
Let me perhaps take a few steps back and clarify two things: why castagnole and hageslag.
If you have been following me a little bit in the past years, you probably know that Fat Tuesday is quite a big event for Aroma di Cannella (for short explanation of why Fat Tuesday is so iconic, you can read this post, and more in the post carousel at the end of this page). And, as tradition calls, I spent some time over the past weekend (and not today, that is Fat Tuesday, because I had to work!) on doing some Carnival bakes. And this time, the first time, with my Nederlander.
I was looking for some easy baking that (very challenging) did not require frying. While scrolling the posts from past years, I thought I could try to replicate the castagnole di Carnevale that I made a few years back and, finally, write an English version of the recipe. I ended up, at the end, using another recipe (see below), yet, the final result was pretty nice and the dough turned out to be very versatile with various decorations.
And here we come to the hageslag part. If you are not from The Netherlands, you know hageslag or codette di cioccolato (chocolate spinkles) as a chocolate garnishment that you put on top of cookies and muffins. Well, in the Netherlands (and probably nowhere else in the world), people have it for breakfast (or even lunch, I can assure you!): take a slide of bread, spread butter on top and last sprinkle the hageslag. Yes indeed. Not our thing, right?
Going back to the Fat Tuesdat bakes, after baking the first batch of plain castagnole (the one in the center, in the photo below), I thought: how could we make the others a bit different? And the Nederlander answered: with hageslag!
I was surprised that, for once, he thought about chocolate sprinkles for their real use, that is, on sweets and bakes. So we did. And the castagnole turned out really nice and crunchy.
And after such inspiration, we baked the third batch with pistachio crumbles. My favorite!
Recipe (castagnole di Carnevale)
For the dought (about 40 pieces)
1 egg
100 gr sugar
8 gr vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
40 ml sunflower oil (or equivalent of butter)
1 orange zest and 2 tbsp of its juice
8 gr baking powder
For decorations
Icing sugar
4 tbs Hageslag (chocolate sprinkles)
4 tbs Pistachio crumble
Procedure
1- Mix the sugars with the egg, oil, orange zest and juice.
2- Add the dry ingredient and mix the ingredients a bit with a spoon. Then, start kneading the dought with your hands: it will turn crumbly first and then you should be able to make it compact, like a cookie dough. Also, it should be sticky.
3- Divide the dough in pieces of 10 gr each and roll them into a rounded shape (the castagnola, the name derives from castagna, or chestnut, because of the shape).
For the plain castagnole (middle, photo): place them in a silicon baking tin for small, round pastries (diameter 3.5) or in an oven-tray, covered it baking paper. Cook in pre-heated over (ventilated) at 170° and bake for 11-12 minutes.
For the hageslag castagnole (right side, photo): put the chocolate sprinkles on a plate and roll the castagnole on the sprinkles, so that they adhere to the dough. Place them in a silicon baking tin for small, round pastries (diameter 3.5) or in an oven-tray, covered it baking paper. Cook in pre-heated over (ventilated) at 170° and bake for 11-12 minutes.
For the pistachio castagnole (left side, photo) put the pistachio crumble on a plate and roll the castagnole on the crumble, so that the crumble adheres to the dough. Place them in a silicon baking tin for small, round pastries (diameter 3.5) or in an oven-tray, covered it baking paper. Cook in pre-heated over (ventilated) at 170° and bake for 11-12 minutes.
Buon Carnevale!
Aroma di cannella 