March 19th is a special date in Italy as it’s when both St. Joseph’s Day and Father’s Day are celebrated and the windows of the country’s many pastry shops fill with delicious traditional zeppole to mark the occasion. In the most traditional version of these choux pastry doughnuts, they’re filled with pastry cream and black cherries in syrup and topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar. While some people prefer baked zeppole, others are fans of the even more indulgent version: fried zeppole! This traditional Campanian pastry can now be found throughout Italy in different variations and with different names, such as the fried bignè di San Giuseppe, filled with cream in the traditional Roman style. Fried zeppole are a rich pastry with a history that dates back over a thousand years. Their name has its origins in the Biblical story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, when it’s said that Joseph turned his hand to making and selling fried pastries and fritters to support his family