Sfogliatelle — Naples' shell-shaped layered pastries

i. Origin & history

The story of the sfogliatella begins, by most accounts, in a convent on the Amalfi Coast. The nuns of the monastery of Santa Rosa in Conca dei Marini are said to have created a pastry in the seventeenth century from leftover semolina cooked in milk, enriched with ricotta, dried fruit and liqueur and wrapped in a layered dough. That pastry, larger and topped with cream and sour cherries, is still made today and is called the Santa Rosa. Like many convent sweets, it was sold to the public through the convent's turning hatch.

Naples made it famous. In the early nineteenth century a Neapolitan pastry maker, Pasquale Pintauro, is said to have obtained the recipe and adapted it, removing the cream and cherries and refining the shape. His shop on Via Toledo became a destination and is still associated with the pastry. From then on, sfogliatelle were part of the identity of Naples, sold warm from bakery ovens in the morning and eaten on the street with coffee.

The name comes from sfoglia, a thin sheet or leaf of dough, the same root as the pasta sheet sfoglia and the French feuille; sfogliatella means something like 'little layered one'. There are two main types. The sfogliatella riccia ('curly') is the famous layered shell; the sfogliatella frolla is made with a smooth, soft shortcrust dough, with the same filling, and is simpler to make and softer to eat.

Sfogliatelle should not be confused with the Italian-American 'lobster tail', a larger pastry made from the same layered dough but filled with choux pastry and cream, or with the French mille-feuille, which is made from laminated puff pastry rather than stretched dough rolled with lard.

ii. How the layers are built

Sfogliatelle riccia are not made with puff pastry. The dough is a very stiff, low-hydration mix of strong flour, water, a little honey and salt — stiff enough to need a pasta machine or a lot of kneading. It is passed repeatedly through rollers until smooth and elastic, then stretched into a very long, very thin ribbon, almost transparent.

That ribbon is spread with softened lard, rolled up tightly into a log while being stretched sideways, and chilled for many hours. The result is a cylinder made of dozens of thin layers of dough separated by fat. When the log is sliced into discs and each disc is pushed outward from the centre with the thumbs, the layers slide over each other like a telescope, forming a cone with ridged walls. The cone is filled and closed.

Lard is important. It is pure fat, with no water, and it stays soft and plastic at cool temperatures, so it separates the layers and lets them slide when the cone is shaped. In the oven it fries the thin dough from within, giving the shell its brittle, glassy crunch. Butter, which contains water, tends to make the layers stick and gives a softer result.

The filling is a thick semolina porridge cooked in water or milk, cooled and beaten with drained ricotta, sugar, egg, candied orange peel, cinnamon and vanilla. It must be firm enough to hold its shape inside the shell; too soft, and it leaks out between the layers as it bakes.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 12 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 500 g strong bread flour (or Manitoba flour)
• 200 ml water
• 15 g honey
• 10 g fine salt
• 150 g lard, softened
• 250 ml water or milk (filling)
• 100 g fine semolina
• 250 g ricotta, well drained
• 100 g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 60 g candied orange peel, finely chopped
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt (filling)
• 2 tbsp icing sugar, to dust

Strong flour with a high protein content gives a dough elastic enough to be stretched very thin. The dough is deliberately stiff; resist the urge to add more water. Lard (sugna in Neapolitan) is traditional and gives the best crunch; vegetable shortening is the closest substitute, while butter makes a softer, less layered shell. Sheep's milk ricotta is used in Campania for its richer flavour; drain any ricotta overnight in a sieve so the filling is firm. Candied orange peel (scorzette) is essential to the classic flavour.

iv. Method

1. Mix the flour, water, honey and salt into a very stiff, rough dough. Knead for 5 minutes, then wrap and rest for 30 minutes. Pass it through a pasta machine on the widest setting, folding it in half each time, 10–15 times until smooth and elastic. Rest again for 1 hour.
2. Divide the dough into four pieces. Pass each through the pasta machine, gradually narrowing the setting, until you have long sheets about 1 mm thick and roughly 12 cm wide.
3. On a long work surface, brush the first sheet with softened lard and start rolling it up tightly from one short end, stretching it gently sideways with your hands as you roll so it becomes wider and thinner. When you reach the end, overlap the next sheet, brush with lard and continue, until you have a tight log about 6 cm across. Brush the outside with lard, wrap in cling film and refrigerate overnight.
4. For the filling, bring the water or milk to the boil with the salt, pour in the semolina and cook, stirring, for 3–4 minutes until very thick. Spread on a plate, cover and cool. Beat with the ricotta, sugar, egg, candied peel, cinnamon and vanilla until smooth. Chill.
5. Heat the oven to 210 °C (410 °F), conventional heat. Line two trays with baking paper. Trim the ends of the log and cut it into 12 discs about 1.5 cm thick.
6. Take a disc and, with greased fingers, press the centre outwards with your thumbs, sliding the layers over each other to form a cone about 8 cm long, with ridges on the outside. Fill with about 2 tablespoons of filling and press the open edge lightly closed.
7. Place on the trays, brush lightly with lard and bake for 20–25 minutes, until deep golden and the layers have fanned out and crisp. Cool for 10 minutes, dust with icing sugar and serve warm.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Keep the dough stiff. A soft dough cannot be stretched as thin and gives fewer, thicker layers. It should feel almost too dry at first.
• Use a pasta machine. It is very difficult to roll the dough thin enough by hand. The machine makes the job manageable.
• Roll the log tightly. Gaps between the layers make the shell fall apart when shaped.
• Chill the log overnight. The lard must be firm so the discs can be cut cleanly and the layers slide without tearing.
• Make the filling firm. Drain the ricotta well and cook the semolina until very thick, or the filling will leak during baking.
• Bake hot. A high temperature makes the layers fan out and crisp quickly. In a cooler oven they stay pale and greasy.

vi. Variations

Sfogliatella frolla is the smooth, round version made with a soft shortcrust of flour, lard and sugar, with the same filling; it is easier to make and softer to eat. The Santa Rosa, the convent original, is a larger riccia topped with piped custard and sour cherries in syrup. The aragosta or Italian-American lobster tail is a larger shell filled with choux pastry, baked and then filled with cream. Neapolitan pastry shops also make savoury and seasonal versions.

Naples has many other famous pastries, including the rum-soaked babà. Elsewhere in Italy, ricotta fillings appear in Sicilian cannoli and cassata; Sicily's almond sweets and Siena's ricciarelli show the convent tradition. Around the Mediterranean, thin-layered pastries include Greek galaktoboureko and Middle Eastern kunafa.

vii. Serving & storage

Sfogliatelle are best served warm, within an hour or two of baking, when the shell is at its crispest and the filling is soft and fragrant. In Naples they are eaten for breakfast or as a mid-morning snack, standing at the bar with an espresso, and bought by the trayful for Sunday visits.

They lose their crunch quickly. Keep leftovers in a paper bag at room temperature for up to a day, and reheat them in an oven at 180 °C (355 °F) for 5–8 minutes to re-crisp the shell. The unbaked, filled sfogliatelle freeze very well: freeze them on a tray, then bag them, and bake from frozen at 200 °C for 25–30 minutes. The dough log can also be frozen for up to a month.

ix. More from Italian

• Babà — rum-soaked yeast cake
• Ricciarelli — Sienese almond biscuits
• Zabaione — warm Marsala custard
• Granita — Sicilian ice
• Galaktoboureko — Greek filo custard pie
• Cremeschnitte — Austrian custard slice