If you happened to be in Italy during the pre-Carneval time, you will be wondering what are those strange, irregular shaped pastries you see everywhere. You will find them at the counter of the coffee bars, bakeries and pastry shops. You can get a paper bag full of these pastries and once you started to eat them you won’t be able to stop. Well, if you didn’t know, these are “lies”. Yes, they are called bugie or chiacchiere, according to the region you are from, or in some parts of Italy they are also called frappe. In English speaking countries they are known as Carnival fritters.

These fried sweets are made of flour, eggs, liquor and honey mixed together. By shaping them in small rectangles and by frying them, you will obtain this irregular shaped “clouds” of dough, that, once sparkled with powdered sugar you will have these fragrant and crunchy sweets that you will become addicted to.

The origin of the Carnival fritters brings us back to the Roman times when frappe were made and offered to the crowd celebrating on the streets. Usually, a big quantity was prepared and it was lasting for the whole period of the celebrations.

In case you have never tried them before and you still don’t have an idea what are we talking about, just imagine crunchy thin sweet fried dough that first noisily breaks under your teeth and then melts in your mouth releasing the taste of vanilla, honey and liquor.

And if this is not enough, here is the recipe!