Ingredients
For the dough
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup white wine
1 1/4 tablespoons sugar
1 3/4 cups flour (plus 1/4 cup more if needed)
For the filling
about 1 1/4 cups Italian wine grape marmalade
For sprinkling
about 1/4 cup icing sugar
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F. degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix the vegetable oil, wine and sugar together and work into a firm dough (If the dough is too sticky, add a touch more flour, if it is too dry add a touch more wine).
Using a rolling pin or a pasta machine roll out the dough to about 1/8 of an inch thick.
On a floured wooden board one could either cut the dough into rectangles -- about 6 inches long 4 inches wide and then place some wine grape marmalade in the center of each rectangle, fold over and shape into a horseshoe (by pulling the edges round the top), or alternatively one can make panels of 6 inches long and 2 1/2 inches wide, place some wine grape marmalade in the center, place a matching panel on top, and then shape into a horseshoe.
Place the filled pastries on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until golden -- about 20 to 30 minutes.
Dust with icing sugar while they are still warm.
Notes
Generally speaking the word, "susumelle," describes Calabrian Christmas cookies (for recipe see Italy Revisited/Cookies without Nuts) but it appears that the word, "Susmelle" and sometimes, "susumelle," can also describe horseshoe-shaped miniature calzone from the Abruzzo region. Actually, the word, "susamielli" can also refer to S shaped spiced honey cookies from Campania. The fact is that all these words have, "mielli," in it, and "mielli" sounds a lot like the Italian word for honey, so it is not surprising that a number of sweets from a number of areas in Italy include this word, what is surprising is that the sweets with very similar names don't look anything like each other, nor do they taste similar. Comments and photo: Mary Melfi. |
