The Celsi Family Wanda-Making Extravaganza

Every year, my family makes Wandas, an Italian cookie that is mostly associated with Italian weddings, but has also evolved as our traditional Christmas cookie as well. Last week, there was a great article in the New York times about European cookie traditions following immigrants and showing up during family celebrations. The wanda (the Italian spelling is quanti) is one of those cookies that you'll find at weddings when the bride is of Calabrian decent. Calabria is a southern Italian province. Unfortunately, the article did not mention wandas, so I am dedicating this entire post to this simple treat. Here is a video of my family making wandas earlier today. Enjoy!

Here's the recipe and instructions. My mom (who is not Italian) learned these from Grandma Celsi (who died in 1990) and from observing and participating in countless wanda-making occasions over the years.

Italian wandas (quantis): (Yield: dozens and dozens)

 

5 pounds of enriched flour

2 dozen LARGE eggs

1 stick of melted margarine

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 T. sugar

2 tsp. good quality vanilla

 

Put eggs in a large mixing bowl along with vanilla, salt, sugar and baking powder. Mix well with mixer. Add margarine and 3 cups of flour. Start mixing with a large spoon at this point. Add several cups of flour at the time until it get too stiff to do anything with a spoon. Once flour is all mixed in, place the dough on a large board to start the kneeding process. Knead the dough until all the ingredients are well kneaded in, using flour as needed to avoid your hands and the board from sticking.

Cut off a small piece of dough about the size of a medium apple and knead it with a small amount of flour for a minute of so. Roll the ball with the palm of your hand to flatten it out and do this process over and over until the ball is soft and can easily form into a ball. Roll each ball gently on to a lightly floured surface and then place the dough ball in a large floured bowl.  Use two bowls so that the balls of dough are on the bottom of the bowl and not in layers. Cover with a lid or plastic and refrigerate. (You can make the dough one day and then prepare wandas the next morning but you don't have to.)

To make strips that are fed into the pasta making machine, soften the dough ball with your hands and form a strip by using the table surface and your hands.  You want the strip to be about 4-5 inches long and about 2 inches wide.

Start out by patting the strip on a lightly floured surface and putting the strip into the wanda making machine on the widest notch and run the strip of dough through the machine. Turn the handle fast so the dough doesn't have a chance to stick. Grab on to the dough as it comes out of the machine so it doesn't krimp up the dough. Flour again if needed. Run the strip through 3 or 4 times and end with the narrowest notch or the notch second from the top. Lay the strip on a large floured board to cut into strips about a half or 3/4's of an inch across.
 

Take each long strip that you cut with a beveled pizza cutter and make the wanda design that you want.  The Celsi family strip is simple.  Take one end of the long strip and pinch it half way up.  At this point you have a loop and the rest of the long strip on the table.  Then take the other end and pinch it into the middle of the first loop that was made.

Set aside for frying in hot vegetable (canola or corn or safflower) oil. We use a large turkey roaster pan and pour about 3-4 inches of oil into the roaster. When the oil is hot enough, the wanda cookie will go immediately to the bottom and then pop back up fairly quickly to brown. When you feel they have a slightly browned look, turn them over with tongs and fry the other side. If you don't get them fully cooked, they will be too soggy when eaten.   If they are too brown, they will be harder to bite into. You want them to be flaky.  Experiment with the first few wandas to make sure the oil is hot, but not too hot. The wanda should sink to the bottom of the pan for two seconds and then pop right up with oil bubbling around it. If it does not start boiling right away, it means the oil is not hot enough. Start out with a temp of 350 and adjust depending on how many wandas go in at a time. After a dozen batches or so, you may have to add additional oil. Allow a full ten minutes for oil to come up to temp before adding more wandas.

Place the cookies onto a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and then onto a table where they can be frosted and packaged.

 

Frosting

 

2 pound bag of powered sugar

3/4 cup of warm coffee

2 tsp. of almond flavoring

Mix well with a mixer

Add 4 T. of melted butter and continue to mix well.

Add a few drops of red coloring until you like the color of pink you want for the cookies.

 

Using a funnel, pour frosting into a squeezable plastic bottle with tip on the end to frost the cookies.

Don't over do the frosting, as this can make the wandas soft. Use a back and forth motion to frost each wanda. (You can buy these bottles for ketchup and they work out well.)

We use a copy paper box lid to put the wandas in after frosting and only put one layer at a time until they are dry enough to add a second layer.  Put waxed paper between the layers.