Sfogliatella

A paper-thin sheet rolled into a log, sliced, and pushed out into a cone of leaves.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains lard, ricotta whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 500 g strong white flour
• 180 ml water
• 10 g salt
• 250 g lard, soft, for laminating
• 120 g fine semolina
• 400 ml milk
• 350 g ricotta, drained
• 150 g caster sugar
• 80 g candied orange peel, diced
• 1 egg
• cinnamon

Method

1. Make a very firm dough with the flour, water and salt — stiffer than pasta. Knead 15 minutes and rest it 2 hours.
2. ROLL AND STRETCH IT UNTIL IT IS TRANSLUCENT, working outwards a little at a time, into a sheet a metre or more long. By hand on a floured cloth, pulling as much as rolling.
3. SMEAR THE WHOLE SHEET WITH SOFT LARD, not butter, and not in folded layers. The lard is spread on a single sheet which is then ROLLED UP TIGHTLY into a log like a Swiss roll.
4. That rolling is where the leaves come from. There is no book-folding as in puff pastry: the layers are one long spiral, which is why they open into a fan rather than rising in flat sheets.
5. Chill the log 12 hours, firm. Cut it into 2 cm discs.
6. TAKE A DISC AND PUSH IT OUT FROM THE CENTRE WITH YOUR THUMBS, turning it, until it becomes a hollow cone with the spiral showing. This is the step that takes practice.
7. Make the filling: cook the semolina in the milk 10 minutes, cool it, then beat in the ricotta, sugar, egg, peel and cinnamon. Fill each cone, pinch it shut, and bake at 200C for 25 minutes.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes