Sfogliatelle-Italian Crack!

Sfogliatelle- Italian crack!

And they tasted even better!

It makes me sad that the literal translation (according to Google) of sfogliatelle is 'puffs'.  This has you imagining something simple, ordinary, run of the mill.  These pastries are ANYTHING BUT ORDINARY.  They are elegant artisan creations and I'm just desperate enough to eat them to try to make them!  These were my dad's favorites and also his brother's, my Uncle Luke.   Heck, I'm pretty sure they were everyone's favorites for that matter.

Sfogliatelle originated in Naples.  They were pastries originally made for the nobles and aristocrats.  Fortunately, peasant families, like mine, came to adore them as well.

An Italian will tell you that the more literal translation of sfogliatelle is 'layers of leaves'.  This is a more worthy translation so I feel a little better.  Harder than the translation is having someone pronounce it correctly the first time.  Just leave the 'G' silent and you are pretty much there...sfol-e-a-tel-e.  Our family's pronunciation went off the grid a little....sfol-ya-del.  As you go further south in Italy, I think the regional dialects get a little more efficient in not pronouncing every vowel in the interest of just getting to the pastry faster.

We couldn't get great Italian pastries in Washington DC very easily when I was growing up.  For this kind of indulgence, it was necessary to pack up the car and head to Connecticut.  There were closer options in New Jersey and New York but we didn't have relatives in those states so what would be the point of that?  Sfogliatelle were meant to be enjoyed with family!

There were lots of great reasons to visit our huggy, kissy, aunts, uncles and cousins.  We only got to see them a few times a year.  Sfogliatelle was just one of the many things that made the 9 hour trip worthwhile.   Almost every single night, relatives would gather for dessert.  Most of the time, these desserts would be purchased from the old world Italian bakery.  With the culinary skill of my aunts, I often wondered why they didn't just whip these up in their spare time....I was such a foolish child.  Sfogliatelle requires quite a bit of prep, skill and patience.  There aren't really any shortcuts on this one....as you'll see.  When Italian neighborhoods had an abundance of bakeries, the sfogliatelle could be purchased for reasonable prices and made it worthwhile for the aunts not to spend hours in the kitchen slaving over the pastry dough.   Eventually, as the number of Italian bakeries shrunk, the price for these little gems skyrocketed.  You'll now pay through the nose to enjoy them.  Just to bring home the point.....Ferrara's bakery in Little Italy sells them for $52 a dozen with another $40 in shipping cost!  I'm all about authenticity but I'm not willing to pay that price.  New Yorkers can pick them up directly without the shipping surcharge and pay about $5 each for the pleasure....but the rest of us might want a different alternative.

Let me focus on the sfogliatelle themselves and the vivid memories I have of waiting for those platters of sweets to be danced out of the kitchen by the aunts.  Most kids get that stern look from their parents when they are presented with choices for desserts.  The look is followed by...."You can only  have one!".   We heard it from our parents and, sadly, we passed it on to the next generation when we became parents. Those words still ring in my ears (and for any of my nieces reading this, I will be whispering in the ear of your child..."take as many as you want" ).

There are familiar Italian pastries like cannoli, biscotti, pannetone.  They are good options when others don't exist. But, sfogiatelle is in a class all its own.  So, when that platter of pastries came out of the kitchen, accompanied by my mom's stern look, it didn't take me more than a second to swoop in on the sfogliatelle before other eager hands snapped them up.  It was a mournful night when there weren't enough to go around for the adults and the kids.  Italian kids generally get spoiled by aunts and uncles so when there was a question as to whether Uncle Frankie or little 5 year old Ralph (with his big soulful eyes) would get that pastry, it wasn't a contest.  Uncle Frankie's wife, Aunt Marge, would turn her stern eyes to Frankie and his hand would detour to the biscotti as a reluctant second choice. Over time, the selection of pastries swung to a heavy ratio of sfogliatelle to make sure no one was ever disappointed.

Let's dissect the goodness of this particular pastry.  The recipe that follows will show step by step directions but there is something beyond the ingredients that make these pastries so compelling.

We all know the pleasure that goes into eating Oreo cookies.  There are generally two ways to eat them.  You can dunk in milk and devour them quickly or you can pull them apart, scrape that sweet Crisco off the chocolate wafer with your teeth and then eat each chocolate wafer separately.  I'm pretty sure the dismembering of the Oreo was to savor the experience.   The dunkers went for volume but if a mom had anything to say about it, you were probably limited in the number of cookies you could eat at one sitting, like I was.  We might get 3 in our lunch box.  This meant you'd take that slow route and pull them apart.

Sfogliatelle are an interesting equivalent to an Oreo....but make no mistake, they are world's apart in terms of sweet indulgences.  Imagine a ribbon of crackly pastry wrapped in dozens of layers around a filling of sweet ricotta cream...shaped like a clam shell.   The ribbon is better than any other pastry dough....so much better.  It literally cracks when you bite into it.  After studying dozens of recipes, reviews and youtubes,  I now realize that it's about the right flour (bread flour)...and the glorious fat that separates the layers of dough.  Don't substitute anything or you'll forfeit that crispy, crackly pastry ribbon.   Also, don't cringe when I say this, but each layer of the ribbon is separated by a layer of 'lard'....not butter....sigh.    Lard has a bad rap.  It's pork fat...so you just have to get over it unless you are a vegetarian.   Oreos have Crisco....and probably additives to that Crisco so I'll take lard over Crisco on any day.  Although lots of recipes use butter, we're all about authenticity so LARD it is. 

Anyway, I've deviated from why sfogliatelle  are like Oreos.  With a history of savoring my sweet indulgences, I would unravel that crispy ribbon shell and enjoy each sweet crunchy bite slowly.   It could take me quite a while if I put my mind to it.  By the time I would get to the final layer encasing that rich ricotta cream, I would be ready to bite into it and get an explosion of citrus flavored cream with one final crunch of the pastry.  This is a finale worth waiting for.  Of course, you don't have to eat them this way.  Uncle Frankie would devour the whole thing in 3 bites.  The first bite would take 1/3 of the crunchy pastry with a healthy dose of cream.  If the cream was oozy, you had to swoop in for the second bite before you got the first chew completed..and then that third one to finish it off.   Wham....gone!   As an adult, he was allowed more than one pastry so the time spent with each one was of little value to him.  His method proved to be messier.  Having said that, the experience of 3 rapid big bites of crunch and cream did have its appeal.  Moments like those reinforced my firm belief that being an adult came with the advantage of unlimited access to pastries without mom eyeballing your every move.   Weight maintenance wasn't part of what I played out in my head when I was 8.  That unfortunate reality would hit me around the age of 35.  Consequently, as an adult, I still hear those dreaded words in my head...."you can only have one".

I'm dedicating this particular recipe effort to my brother Mike.  He had the advantage of living in New Jersey for a few years and spoiled himself with sfogliatelle.  He now lives in Indianapolis.....so all good things came to an end in terms of access to Italian pastry.  He's challenged me to make him sfogliatelle.  This recipe isn't in my all cosmic Italian recipe book that I'm painstakingly translating.  Instead, I'm plowing though other resources.  I've moved from translating written recipes into trying to catch a few Italian words and phrases in scattered youtubes and then translating these while guessing at most of the words as I misspell them in Google translator.  The amalgamated recipe that I have come up with seems to capture the essence of authenticity.   Where most English versions of recipes are satisfied with using all purpose flour and butter, the chefs from Naples use bread flour (specifically Caputo Manitoba flour but I will use Gold Medal bread flour).  You could just grate citrus peel into the ricotta filling but the authentic filling is made with home-made candied citrus peel and then a little bit of grated peel as well.  And let's not forget the lard.....it is a transformative fat in how it reacts with these layers of dough.  The only thing I'm still toying with is whether or not I should make homemade ricotta.  That might be too much to tackle over a two day test kitchen event.  In spite of being intimidated by this particular challenge, I'm anxious to get started to see if this recipe will successfully satisfy a sweet tooth aching to test the result. 

This has a lot of steps so be patient!

I have no doubt that I will need to do these several times.  It's unlikely that you hit pay dirt on the first try with these goodies.  I'll continue to update this blog until I think I have it perfected over time.

However, here is the conclusion after my first attempt:

Made my own candied citrus peel.  This was easy and is included in the recipe below.  I almost feel healthy eating it but, like most splendiferous things, that's just an illusion.  I'm wondering why I would ever throw another citrus peel away when I can make these tasty treats so easily. 

Did I make homemade ricotta....YES!  Recipe will be in a separate blog.  There's a quick way and a slower way to make Ricotta.  The version I chose is the slower method because it theoretically develops a more authentic ricotta flavor.  Real ricotta is made from the whey that comes from making cheese.  In the absence of having that handy, this alternative creates a really wonderful version of ricotta that is 10 times better than grainy brands at most grocery stores....and much cheaper.   I'll probably experiment on the different ways to make ricotta for another post opportunity but for now, it took about 30 minutes (and most of that was just sitting and watching the curds and whey go their separate 'wheys'....couldn't resist the opportunity for a pun!).  It was well worth it.  My one mistake is that I probably drained it for too long and it got firmer than needed.  I'd like a creamier ricotta filling for these pastries  The taste, however, was head and shoulders above anything from the stores in this part of the country.

Sfogliatelle prep and execution.  Wow, this was fun.   I didn't expect to say that.  I thought I would be using all those delicious Italian curse words throughout the process (which is why I haven't attempted to video anything).  There are lots of tricks that I learned and will use more efficiently on the next attempt but here are the essential ones:

• You can use the KitchenAid automatic pasta maker....but a manual pasta machine has one more extra thin setting.  Yes, I own two machines.  Having two comes in handy every once in a while.  So, I sped up the process by using the KitchenAid through to the thinnest setting and then transferred the dough over to the manual machine for the final roll. It might not be entirely necessary to do this but the dough was transparently thin and perfect as I stretched it into a roll (you'll see what I mean in the photos).   You can probably get the same result by just stretching the dough a little more. 
• Rolling the dough into a log after you've rolled out the thinnest setting is tricky because you need room to unroll an 8-10 foot length of dough.  I didn't plan ahead, violating my one rule about really preparing for the recipe before you launch into it...curses to me.   I put the pasta machine in the wrong place, with too little yardage for the ever expanding length of dough, so I improvised.  I followed one instruction that suggested rolling the entire length of dough around a rolling pin and then unrolling it before slathering the surface with lard and re-rolling it again into a log.   That failed miserably.  The dough stuck together and shredded as I tried to unroll it.  I cut it off the rolling pin and proceeded to start all over again through the pasta machine.  The rolling pin thing MIGHT work if you stop with the thickness of the KitchenAid and don't use a thinner setting on a manual machine.  I think the super thin layers are just too fragile.  With my final roll of the dough out of the KitchenAid, it was a dilemma but I decided to try to stay true to the thinnest version of dough and cranked out the final thin layer from the manual pasta machine.  As it came out of the manual machine, I would stop cranking and lather up the sheet that had been extruded.  I stretched it to twice its width and then rolled it into the jelly roll.  This worked perfectly and I'll go through the technique in detail in the recipe....yippee!
• Forming the clam shell shape is an art.  I figured it out after fumbling through 12 of them.  I was a pro by the time I got to the final few.  You'll start with a 2 inch round disc.  If you spread a little lard on the top and bottom of the disk, it helps the fingers slide instead of pulling the dough.   Use your thumbs on the top and index fingers underneath to gently flatten, turn and push from the center of the disk with your thumbs to the outer edges, you'll actually feel those layers start to emerge on the disk....like little baby ridges.   You have to make sure you go from the center to the outer edge until you reach a point of no return.  You'll know this 'point of no return' after you poke a few holes in the first few you attempt.  You then move your thumbs and finger pressure more towards the middle and the up towards the outer edge.  Use an even pressure and movement as you rotate the disc.  In the end, all of those ribbons or leaves of dough will be exposed by just a fraction of themselves on a flat like disc....looks a little like an old vinyl record with the grooves and ridges.  It will double in size and then this disc will start to invert itself into a cone.  I confess to making a bunch of these with holes that formed where the ribbons separated because I pushed unevenly.  No matter.....they might have looked a little uglier but they tasted great.  
• I froze some of the final product without baking....and put the rest in the fridge to make for dessert last night.  I took them out of the fridge about an hour before baking to let them come to room temp.  They cooked up crackly, crispy...PERFECT!  

And here's the recipe!
 

Candied Citrus Peel 
(I'm putting this at the front of the recipe because when you finally get the urge to make the sfogliatelle, you don't want to have to get frustrated waiting for the candied citrus peel to dry for 2 days...god forbid you loose the urge to make the sfogliatelle)

Ingredients

• 3 oranges
• 1 lemon
• 2 cups water and 1 cup sugar to boil into a syrup
• 1/4 cup sugar to coat (less or more to taste)

1. Cut the ends off of 3 oranges and 2 lemons 
2. Slice into the peel from top to bottom of each piece of citrus to make it easier to peel
   
3. Peel each section and then gently scrape some of the white pith from each peel.  You don't need to be compulsive about this.  I've also just cut the peel off the fruit to minimize the amount of white pith that comes with it.  If you decide to cut off the peel, just make sure you don't include any of the pulp.  Definitely remove this before the next step. 
   
4. Cut each peel into 1/4 inch slices
   
5. Put the peel in a pan, cover with water and boil for about 15 minutes.   Drain into a colander and rinse.  Put them back into the pan and cover with cold water to drain and rinse one more time.  This will remove some of the bitter taste from the peel.
   
     
6. Put 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water in a pan.  Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar.  Add the peel and reduce heat to a simmer for 45 minutes or until the peel is translucent.  The amount of time it takes to get to that 'translucent' stage can vary depending on the thickness of the pith, the temperature of your simmer, etc.  Just watch it and when it gets to a nice translucent level.....time to take it out.
   
    
7. Use a slotted spoon or a pair of tongs to remove the peel just letting the excess syrup drip off for a few seconds.  Then, toss all of the peel into a bowl at once with about 1/8-1/4 cup of granulated sugar and stir to coat each piece.   The amount of sugar you use at this point is really up to you.  I don't like the peel overly saturated with sugar.  It's been boiling in syrup for 45 minutes so there's no chance that it won't be sweet.  If you have caster sugar (fine granules), use that but ordinary granulated sugar is fine too.
   
     
8. Place the peel on a rack to dry for 24-48 hours.   Alternatively, just throw it on a plate and toss it around every few hours or whenever you think of it until it's all dried.  
9. SAVE THE SYRUP....this is a great simple syrup for cocktails, ice tea, etc.  
10. Candied peel can be stored in a sealed container or zip lock bag for at least one month, refrigerated for several months or frozen for even longer.   I need to freeze it.  Out of sight out of mind.  Right now, I'm craving some of that frozen orange peel so I'll take a break and go munch on some. 

Pastry Dough

Ingredients:

• 500 grams bread flour (3.9 cups)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 190 grams water (7/8th cup)
• 40 grams honey (1.5 to 2 Tbs)

Preparing the dough and pastry shells:

1. Mix the four ingredients above in a bowl.  Use a spoon until it gets too hard and then dive in with your hands!
   
2. Knead the dough for 10 full minutes.  It seems like a long time and your arms and hands will hate you but just do it and it will pay off.  You'll see the dough transform from a lumpy mess to a smooth ball.  
   
   
   
   
3. Wrap the dough in plastic and set it aside for 30 minutes.  Don't refrigerate it.  It's resting...shhhhhh. 
4. Divide the dough into 2 pieces.  take one of the pieces and keep the other one wrapped in plastic wrap.  Flatten it a little and pass it through the first level of thickness on your pasta machine.  As I mentioned I have both the electic KitchenAid and a manual one.  I used the KitchenAid to do the heavy work because it's faster and easier.....and then made the final pass of the dough in the manual machine as you'll see in step #5.  

   

   Here's the hardly used manual machine that came in handy

   
   
   
   
5. You'll put your dough through the first level of the KitchenAid to start to consolidate it and get it to an elastic piece of dough.  You fold it in three when it comes out and turn it clockwise and pass it through again.  You do this another 10-15 times at level 1.  You'll feel the texture getting springy.  I then took it up a notch to the level 2 and only ran it through the machine once or twice without folding it.  Again, without folding, I ran it through levels 3-8.  It's getting pretty long at this point but the texture is nice and pliable.  I forgot to take pictures of this but it's basic pasta dough making for anyone who has done this before.  The good news is that this is not like pie crust.  It's very elastic and easy to work with and doesn't make a mess out of anything...including the machines.
6. Moving on to the manual machine.  You might not need to go to this extreme level of thinness because you will be stretching the dough as you roll it.  In the first picture below, I'm feeding this really long piece of pastry dough into the manual crank machine.  It's folding itself under the machine.  In the second photo, I've pulled out the folded layers to prevent them from sticking to each other and laid it on the counter.  It was about 3 feet long at this point.  I still had another 3 feet left to feed through the machine.  
   
   
   
   
7. The process of slathering on the lard, stretching the dough and rolling it into a log is shown in the following pictures.  You can see in the first photo below, I'm just beginning to roll the dough into a log.  This first step is essential to get it tight.  Don't put lard on the first few inches.  It will prevent them from sliding apart when you are making the discs and keep the ends pretty.  The dough has to be stretched to twice the width as you start to roll.  In the second photo,  the dough extruded from the pasta machine is just laying on the kitchen counter.  I smear it with lard, making sure to get the edges.  Lard was all over the counter but that actually made it easier to stretch the dough in the third picture below (...and that's why God made Windex to clean your counters).  You'll keep stretching it to about double the width.  You can see that this dough has the elasticity of a balloon.  It's really transparent as you stretch it.  You then lay it on the counter and it stays put because of the residual lard on the counter.   You roll up the dough onto the log and keep cranking out the dough, lathering it up, stretching and rolling until you use up the dough.  When you finish with the first batch of dough, smear the log all over with lard and wrap loosely in plastic to keep it from drying out until you finish rolling out the remainder of the dough that hasn't gone through the rolling process.   Overlap the end pieces about an inch to join them together and keep rolling your log.  
   
     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Give you log one final smear of lard, wrap it in plastic and put it in the refrigerator overnight...or at least 10 hours to make sure the lard re-hardens.
   
9. Take the log out of the refrigerator and start to squeeze, stretch and roll it until it's about 2-3 times in length or about 2 inches in diameter.
   
   
   
   
10.   Slice the log into 3/4 inch discs.  You'll be able to see all those lovely layers of dough when you look at the flat side of the disc
    
    
    
    
11. Start to flatten the disc using your thumbs and index finger.  Thumbs on top, index fingers underneath.  Push from the center out to the edges as you rotate the disc...doubling the diameter of the disc.  Just work it from the center until the center is pretty thin but not separated.  Move up the disc with your fingers trying to make the disc an even thinness.  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. You'll get to a point where the disc will flatten out and then easily invert into a cone shape.  You'll cup the cone between your thumb and your other fingers and fill it with the ricotta filling (about two tablespoons)....(recipe follows).
    
    
    
    
      
13. Close the clamshell and you're ready to bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes or until nicely browned on top.   Look at all those ribbons of dough that you can see on the surface of the unbaked sfogliatelle...and that sheen of pure lard....all going to crisp up to something that crackles and crunches when you bite into it.  When they come out of the oven, sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and devour them!
    
    
    
    

Ricotta Cream Filling

(Full disclosure- I am not yet 100% satisfied with the cream.  The taste is awesome but the texture was a little stiffer than I wanted.  This was probably due to being overly zealous about making my own ricotta and then letting it drain too long.  This created a dryer, but wonderfully tasty, ricotta.  I'll be making a creamier texture next time.  Still, I loved the flavor and will keep most of the ingredients the same)

Ingredients:

150 grams (1 cup) of fine Semolina flour (Bob's Red Mill)

300 grams (2 cups) Ricotta

165 grams (3/4 cup) sugar

3 egg yolks

75 grams of finally chopped candied citrus peel

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

340 grams (1.5 cups) whole milk

1.5 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon grated orange peel

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1. Bring the milk to a simmer in a small pan.  Pour the semolina into the milk as  you stir it quickly.  Continue cooking for 2 minutes until it's very thick.  Scrape into a mixer bowl and start to mix it to cool it down a little. 
   
2. Add vanilla and eggs when mixture is cooled.  Mix until well blended, scraping the side of the bowl often
3. Add remainder of the ingredients and mix it up well.  That's it!  It's a very dense consistency and holds up really well when baked.  It doesn't ooze out of the pastry at all...which is what you want.  No single calorie should be wasted by burning on a baking sheet!
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These little pastry bombs were perfect.  I really could stop here and declare 100% success but, like I said, I might try for a creamier innard.   When my brother posted the picture of the final result on his Facebook page last night, our foody family relatives hailed from far and wide to comment.  If any of them are reading this, I commit to making big quantities for a Connecticut reunion if we can pull it off!!   Our dearly loved aunts, uncles and parents, who have passed away, likely lent a helping hand in this effort. I hope I did them all proud.  

Buona Mangiata!