Traditionally, flancati is a dessert made with dough, deep fried and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar and that's how, I'm told, it was always made by my Grandma Hiller. However, while searching through her old recipes I found this written in her hand- Oven Baked Flancati. As a child, I was never privileged to a taste her flancati but my Mom and Aunt made them with her often and they confirmed deep frying was the process she used.
Results of my oven baked flancati.
Probably at some point my Grandma moved away from the time-consuming flancati to rosettes (a Swedish cookie) because I definitely remember eating those. Rosette ingredients are very similar to flancati, a combination of eggs, flour, vanilla, milk (instead of sour cream) and a little sugar. A special tool is coated with the batter mixture then held in the heated oil until the rosettes fall off the tool. When cooled, like flancati, the rosettes are sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. Every culture has figured out how to fry dough, top it with sugar and call it a dessert/pastry. Whether you're eating flancati, rosette, churro, beinet, zeppole, bugne, funnel cake, or doughnut in the end it's all fried dough! Yum.
The original, handwritten recipe can be seen on the "Family Recipes" page.