Diples (aka Honey Kisses)

Have you ever tried diples? If you have, you know that they are a melt in your mouth goodness of a dessert…with a delicately crunchy shell dipped in a sweet flavored syrup then drizzled with honey and topped with nuts and cinnamon. If you haven’t tried this then you are in luck! No more missing out on such greatness, try the recipe below!

My mother was the diples queen to a lot of people that knew her. She had making the dough down to an art, flipping large sheets of the rolled out dough with a long and thin rolling pin (it was about 3 feet long). She also used to call them honey kisses, I suppose because the sweet honey kisses your lips as you bite into it 🙂 .

Another way I have used the diples shells is to make a Greek inspired cannoli, click here for that recipe.

In this recipe I dip the shells into a sweet honey and orange flavored syrup before topping. You can also use lemon to flavor your syrup or no citrus at all, if you prefer. Then I drizzled them with honey and topped with chopped walnuts and cinnamon…and there you have it, simple Greek diples!

Typically you can add mastixa or maraschino liquor in the dough, or plain freshly squeezed orange juice. I have also used Marsala wine when I was making the shells to fill with cannoli filling, and it is just as good.

You will need:

Diples Shells:

• 1 1/4-1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder, sifted into the flour
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup orange juice, mastixa or maraschino liquor
• Canola/vegetable oil for frying

Dipping Syrup:

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (pulp strained)
• a few slices of orange peel
• 1 small cinnamon stick

Topping:

• Honey, for drizzling
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped (more if needed)
• cinnamon

Steps:

For the shells:

1. In a medium to large mixing bowl, combine sifted flour and baking powder together with whisk and remove 1/4 cup of it and set aside, and make a well in the center of the mixing bowl.
2. Beat egg yolks and sugar with fork until well incorporated, about 20 seconds, then slowly add the liquor or orange juice and combine, then pour into well of flour mixture.
3. Start off using a fork to slowly combine the flour mixture into the liquid, then use your hands to fully combine. At this point, if it is too sticky (it should be a little sticky) add the remainder 1/4 cup of flour mixture in, as needed. Whatever flour you don’t need you can use to lightly flour your surface to knead dough. If you don’t have any flour mixture left just use some plain flour, as needed.
4. Place dough onto slightly floured surface and need for 3 to 4 minutes until it is smooth and tight, then let rest, covered with a towel, for 30 minutes.
5. After dough has rested for 30 minutes, re-knead it for a few more minutes then cut off a portion of it and roll out into REAL thin layers, where you can almost see through the sheet.
6. Once you have rolled it as thin as you can without tearing the dough, cut into a short rectangle (what is a short rectangle? It is a word I made up…lol. It’s a square that is just a little longer on one side, you don’t want them too long). You can cut them as big or little as you want. It depends how large you want your diples to be. I like to get three good bites out of them so I cut mine approximately 3 by 4 inches. Each one doesn’t have to be exact if you don’t care that they all look symmetrical. Fry up any small edges too, you can leave them as is and process the same way as the shells for some light snacking 🙂 .
7. As you cut your pieces lay them in a paper towel lined pan in single layers with a paper towel in between each layer. Once you have cut all your pieces its time to fry them up.
8. Heat a wide pan, that has about 2 1/2 to 3 inch sides, with about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of oil to about 340-350F.
9. Having two forks in hand, add a piece of dough into oil (lay it into the oil away from you). When you see it puff up on the bottom side quickly turn it over to the other side with the forks (this process will take 2 seconds). Once you turn it and it puffs up on the other side then quickly manipulate the dough using your forks (but not puncturing the dough) to gently roll it into a cylinder (see video below). Continue with rest of the pieces.
10. Place your completed shells (as you make them) on a paper towel lined sheet tray to drain and cool.

For the dipping syrup:

1. Add all ingredients into a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. Let boil for a couple minutes until you are sure all the sugar has melted.
2. Remove from heat and set aside until ready to dip. Once you are ready, warm it up again and turn off heat.

Assembly:

1. Take a cooled shell and dip it into the warm syrup, making sure to turn it and get the syrup into the shell. You may have to tilt your pot, with the syrup, to one side a little to get the syrup all in the shell.
2. Place dipped shell onto a platter and continue dipping shells until you have one full row of dipped shells.
3. Drizzle honey on all the shells in first layer and then sprinkle generously with chopped walnuts and sprinkle with cinnamon.
4. Go onto next layer and prepare the same way until all the shells that you need have been dipped. It will look like a pyramid. Only dip the amount you need. You can store undipped shells, covered, in a cool place for a week or two and only dip them into the syrup around the time you need them.

Kali Orexi!

Video on how to fry diples dough: