Christmas means a lot of things – cookies, carols, crazy retail experiences, amazingly terrible movies from your childhood you’d totally forgotten about until they pop up on ABC Family (Jingle All the Way, who could forget that mid-90s brilliance of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad!? Seriously. Amazing.)

and you know, more cookies. Again. Because cookies, like pie, are doubly-important. Christmas cookies hold a special place in my heart, and I’m talking about the traditional, delicious sugar cookies cut into shapes of little boots and Santas, that you bribed friends into helping you decorate in return for boozy holiday drinks and the promise of eating said cookies upon final completion. I love those cookies, they are amazing, they bring me back to happy, sugar-coma-y, childhood memories infused with the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg and a little bit of being too tired to finish the entire batch.

But this week, I was craving something a little different. Perhaps (okay fine, probably) due to my mild obsession with my new cast iron skillet, I wanted to make tiny, fried dough balls of goodness, infused with citrus and doused in honey. Because, who wouldn’t want that? And these cookies, called struffoli,  were so easy, and simple, and smelled so good in my apartment, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make them. Plus, you get to say “struffoli” a lot, so that was just a big bonus for me.

Start off with lots of flour and eggs:

Get some citrus up  in there

and then get zesty

roll out some ropes

And then cut and fry up those fritters!

And then, you have bowls of delicious fritters, begging for a honey glaze

And drizzle those puppies generously

And then end up with so many plates of cookies. So, so many.

You can put them into little bags for your friends as gifts, or, you can sit and eat them all during your second viewing of Jingle All the Way. I’m not telling you which option I chose… but I will say you really pick up on the subtleties of 90s overacting after the first viewing of that movie!