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Sfogliatella (Layered Shell Pastry)

Name: Sfogliatella (Layered Shell Pastry)
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 12 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 300 g strong bread flour; 110 ml water; 5 g salt; 1 tsp honey; 150 g lard; 100 g semolina; 250 ml water; 250 ml milk; 1 pinch salt; 250 g ricotta; 100 g sugar; 1 egg; 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon; 50 g candied orange peel; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 2 tbsp icing sugar

Naples' shell-shaped pastry. Roti canai names three ways of building layers into a dough on its own page — a croissant folds butter in, an apple strudel stretches and wraps once, and roti canai coils a stretched sheet into a spiral and presses it flat. Add the oil paste of a shaobing and there are four, and in all four the layers end up lying parallel to the surface. This one does not: the stretched sheet is smeared with lard and rolled into a log, and then the log is cut across rather than pressed, so each disc is a spiral seen end-on that splays into a cone of layers standing on edge. That is why it shatters into leaves instead of separating into sheets.

Steps

Mix the flour, water, salt and honey into a very stiff dough and knead it 10 minutes. If it feels pleasant to handle there is too much water in it — this dough has to be stretched to paper later, so the gluten has to be strong.
⏲ 15 min
Wrap it and rest it at least 2 hours (overnight in the fridge is better). As dough and gluten puts it, dough that springs back as you roll is a time problem, not a strength problem.
⏲ 120 min
Make the filling. Bring the water, milk and salt to the boil, rain the semolina in while stirring and cook 5 minutes until it comes away from the pan, then spread it out and let it go completely cold.
⏲ 15 min
Beat the cold semolina with the ricotta, sugar, egg, cinnamon, candied peel and vanilla, and refrigerate. Semolina set firm as a custard is explained on galaktoboureko, and sweetened ricotta on cannolo.
⏲ 10 min
Roll the dough as thin as it will go, then stretch it by hand over the backs of your hands until you can read print through it. Aim for a translucent strip 20cm wide and over a metre long. This step is the pastry, and it takes the longest.
⏲ 30 min
Smear the whole strip with soft lard, thinly and with no gaps. As baklava says of butter between filo sheets, anywhere you skip, two layers bake into one and that patch chews differently.
⏲ 10 min
Roll it up from one long edge into a tight log, wrap it and chill at least 2 hours. If the lard has not set firm, the spiral smears when you cut it.
⏲ 120 min
Cut 2cm discs. One at a time, push with your thumbs from the centre outward, turning as you go, into a cone about 10cm across. A rolling pin flattens the spiral and kills the layers.
⏲ 20 min
Fill each cone with 2 tablespoons of the cold filling, pinch the wide edge shut and set them on paper. A filling that is even lukewarm gives off steam inside and forces the layers apart.
⏲ 10 min
200°C for 20-25 minutes, until deep gold and the ridges have separated. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm.
⏲ 25 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Frolla: a Neapolitan bakery sells riccia (the layered one) and frolla side by side. Frolla is the same filling in a plain sweet shortcrust — the version with none of this page's technique in it at all. Put the two next to each other and it is obvious what the layers are for.
Coda d'aragosta: the "lobster tail", made from the same log stretched much longer. It is filled with cream after baking, so nothing inside gives off steam and the layers open wider.
Santarosa: the 17th-century original from the convent at Conca dei Marini, with cream and a cherry over the semolina filling.
Canosa's sfigghiet: Canosa di Puglia has a Christmas pastry of a similar name that is a different thing. It fills a good part of the photographic record.
Butter instead of lard: it works. The layers stand less well, for the reason in the tips, and you suddenly have to keep the whole thing cold.

Tips

Roti canai is the near miss, and there is exactly one point of difference. Roti canai names three ways on its own page: a croissant folds butter in, an apfelstrudel stretches and wraps once, and roti canai coils a stretched sheet into a spiral and then presses it flat. Add a shaobing and its oil paste and there are four. A sfogliatella coils a stretched sheet too — and then cuts across the roll instead of flattening it. Roti canai crushes the spiral back into a stack; this one stands it up. Which is why in all four the layers lie parallel to the surface and here alone they run across it.
Why lard. Butter is 15-18% water with milk solids in it, so when it melts it soaks into the dough — which is why a croissant has to be kept cold from beginning to end. Lard is very nearly pure fat: it can be spread at room temperature and still stays as a film between the layers rather than being absorbed. The management problem is the opposite one.
Stretch it until it is translucent. The thickness sets the number of layers. A one-metre strip cut into 2cm discs puts more than twenty turns of spiral into each disc, and those turns are the leaves. Rolled thick you get folds, not leaves.
There is no leavening in it at all. No yeast, no baking powder — the lift is water in the dough turning to steam between hundreds of layers. Which is exactly why the filling must be cold: a lukewarm one gives off steam inside and opens the layers the wrong way.
The log has to be properly cold to cut. With soft lard in it the knife pushes the spiral over and smears it, and the disc is just a lump. Overnight is noticeably better than two hours.
Thumbs, not a rolling pin. A pin lays the spiral flat again. Pressing from the centre and turning is what makes the turns splay upward, and that is the shape of the pastry.
Same day, ideally within hours. It belongs to the group serving temperature calls the dishes with no grace period. A day later the layers have taken up moisture and gone leathery instead of leafy.