Sunday Sweet: Chiacchiere al Cacao

A recipe for Fried Cocoa Pastry Ribbons

Feb 23, 2025

∙ Paid

Illustration from the BD archives by **Daniela Bracco**

Benvenuti! Welcome to Buona Domenica, a weekly newsletter of inspired Italian home cooking and baking. I’m a journalist, cooking instructor, occasional tour guide, and author of eight cookbooks on Italian cuisine. This week’s issue features a recipe for paid subscribers for Chiacchiere al Cacao, a fried Carnival sweet.

The newsletter remains on an abbreviated schedule while I wrap up my book project. The next newsletter will be published in mid-March, once I’ve submitted the manuscript to the publisher.

In the meantime, I am pausing paid subscriptions. If you are a paid subscriber, you will not be charged and your subscription will be extended by the number of weeks that the newsletter is on hiatus.

Don’t forget: You can still access the entire Buona Domenica archive— here, and the full index of 191 recipes here.

Thank you for your patience!

A few reminders:
LET’S MAKE PASTA! I am teaching several online pasta-making workshops in collaboration with 177 Milk Street in February, March, and April. The Ultra-Regional Pasta Class on Feb. 27 is sold out. However, there are still spots available for the series of three classes on regional stuffed pastas:

March 13, March 27, April 10: INTENSIVE: ITALY’S REGIONAL STUFFED PASTAS with Domenica Marchetti (Price for all 3 classes: $249.95; DISCOUNT: Use the code PASTAPARTY at checkout for a 15% discount)

March 13: Ricotta Cheese Ravioli in Tomato Sauce
March 27: Agnolotti del Plin with Butter and Sage
April 10: Cappelletti in Brodo
Plus, all the skills & tool recommendations you need to confidently make countless other stuffed pastas at home.

ALSO: REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR FOOD WRITERS IN PIEMONTE, FALL 2025: Join Kathy Gunst and me in October for our second Food Writers in Piemonte workshop. Please send me an email at domenica@domenicacooks.com for more information.

Dear Friends,

I could not let Carnival season end without sharing a recipe for a fried sweet. I’ve been doing it every year since this newsletter debuted in February 2022. At least I thought I had. But when I went spelunking through the archives, I found a fried-food post for 2022 and one for 2023 (links below), but nothing for 2024. Out of four February newsletters last year, not one featured food cooked in copious amounts of oil. Egregious.

Today, I am making up for that oversight, and, while I’m at it, another oversight. Earlier this month, Buona Domenica celebrated its third anniversary. I wrote ‘celebrated,’ but the truth is, with the impending book deadline, I forgot all about this happy milestone until just the other day. So a belated AUGURI to this little publication of mine, and a huge GRAZIE to you, whether you have been here since the beginning or are newly arrived. I am grateful for your support, which allows me to keep this newsletter going.

*Cocoa chiacchiere fresh out of the fryer*

This recipe has been lingering in the back of my mind for awhile. It refused to leave me alone until I stopped what I was doing (writing) and gave it a go. I needed to stand up and stretch anyway, so why not squeeze in a little frying.

Chiacchiere al Cacao, or fried cocoa pastry ribbons, are a riff on those crispy strips of fried pastry that go by a thousand names and that you find in bakeries throughout Italy during the weeks leading up to Lent. Chiacchiere means ‘gossip’ or ‘chatter’ in Abruzzese dialect, and may refer to the way the pastry bubbles noisily when it hits the pan of hot oil. Other names include bugie (lies), cenci (rags), crostoli (a reference to their crunchy texture), frappe or sfrappole (no idea), angel’s wings, bow ties, and so on.

I fried a batch on Friday and I have been munching on them ever since. Scroll down for the recipe so you can join me.

Do you have a favorite fried treat? You must! Tell us about it in the comments.