Name: Granny’s Lies (Busie d’la Nonna)
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 55 g (2 oz) butter; 1 large egg, beaten; 250 g (9 oz) plain flour; lard or olive oil for deep-frying; icing sugar for dusting; 2 tbsp granulated sugar; a pinch of salt; 5 tbsp sweet vermouth

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

An Invitation to Italian Cooking

By Antonio Carluccio

Published 1986

About

‘A granny shouldn’t tell lies, but these particular ones are sweet lies - made from strips of pastry that are then cut into ribbons and tied in bows by a patient granny. They can be eaten after an informal dinner, or in the afternoon, with a cup of coffee. Like cannoli, they are best fried in lard.’

Ingredients

55 g (2 oz) butter
250 g (9

Method

Mix the butter with the flour, as for pastry, until the texture is like breadcrumbs. Add the egg, sugar, salt and finally the vermouth. Knead to a smooth dough. This takes 5 minutes or so, and the dough should be fairly stiff. Alternatively, use an electric mixer with a blade for dough-making. Put the dough to rest in a cool place for 2 hours or more.

To make the busie, roll out the dou