Sfogliatelle Ricce - The King of Italian Pastry

Stinky The Clown

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Tue Feb-01-05 11:29 PM
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Sfogliatelle Ricce - The King of Italian Pastry

Sfogliatelle Ricce, or as I grew up calling it, "SCHFEE-ah-del", is easily the most delightful pastry in the entire Napolitano repertoire, if not in all of Italy. An almost architectural construction, it resembles for all the world a clam shell.

(Note, this picture is from the internet - not mine. The filling appears to be a custard of some sort. The real filling is more "grainy" in appearance.)

The version I make is similar, but uses a simpler dough - Sfogliatelle Frolle. I know of no machine to make these. They are a long, involved process and tedious to make. But, when you consider that the cheapest I have ever seen them for sale in Italian bakeries is $4.50 each, and if you love them as much as I do, they're worth doing. Even Sparkly's daughter, who, at 18, is easily the world's pickiest eater, loves them ..... and loves helping me make them.

A note ..... these are made with lard and butter. DO NOT SUBSTITUTE. In the end, you will not taste the lard at all. I promise. And you will not be eating very much of it, either. But the dough suffers by an order of magnitude if you use ::::shudder:::: Crisco or another faux lard, or if you use margarine instead of real butter. Sorry. Some things demand the real thing and this, for sure, is one of them.

In the end, these are light and crispy/flaky pastry with a sweetish (but not at all sickeningly sweet) filling of an orange flavored semolina and ricotta filling. The Napolitanos, and all Campanians, really, eat these by the millions - well, thousands anyhow - every morning.

After reading the recipe, you'll also understand that you may have to double your dose of Mevacor! :) (Just joking! .... well .... mostly joking ....)

Without further ado ...... Sfogliatelle!

For the dough:

3 C AP flour
1 t salt
3/4 C warm water

For the filling:

1 C water
1/2 C sugar
2/3 C semolina or Cream of Wheat**
1-1/2 C whole milk ricotta
2 large egg yolks
2 t vanilla extract
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/3 C candied orange peel, rinsed, and finely chopped

Plus:
4 oz lard
8 T (1 stick) butter

**I tend to like the taste of the Cream of Wheat better than the semolina. I use 2-1/2 minute Cream of Wheat and it works perfectly.

Making the dough:

Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in the water to get a dry dough. Very dry, really.

Scrape the bowl, mix again to get all the bits into the dough. Dump out on the counter. Press and knead the dough to make sure all the dry bits are incorporated and work it for a short time. Less than a minute after all is incorporated. No need to knead it hard.

Flatten the dough to about a bit more than 1/4 inch thick - say 1/3 inch (is there such a thing?) ..... by hand or with a rolling pin.

Set your pasta roller to the widest setting.

Pass the dough repeatedly through the roller at the widest setting, folding it in half after each pass. This replaces long, hard, tedious kneading. Do this 10 or 15 times, until the dough is smooth - almost exactly the same as macaroni dough.

Now roll the dough into a ball, cover it with plastic film and let it rest in the refrigerator for 2 hours or more.

For the filling:

Use a 2 qt sauce pan. Combine the water and the sugar and bring to a boil. Slowly add the Cream of Wheat (or semolina if that's your choice), stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Lower the heat and cook, stirring constantly until cooked - 2-1/2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand.

Run the ricotta through a fine sieve or run through a food processor with a metal blade until smooth - just a few seconds in the processor!

I also run the candied orange peel (or you could just as well use candied mixed fruit, candied citron, etc.) through the processor to chop it quite fine.

Stir the ricotta into the Cream of Wheat mixture. Put back on the heat and cook for a few more minutes. Remove again from the heat.

Beat the egg yolks - not too much, just enough to get them sorta mixed. Add the yolks, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and orange peel. Mix well. Remove from the pan into a shallow dish (a pie plate is perfect), cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for several hours, until cold and well set.

Combine the lard and butter in a mixing bowl and mix well until fluffy. Using a mixer works best. Allow to stand at room temperature.

Assembly/Fabrication:

Start with a roomy work area. The kitchen table may be better than your counter. Read on to understand how to make the best choice of work area for this step. Divide the dough into four parts (or six) and flour it. Run each part of the dough through your macaroni roller on the widest setting. Now set the roller two settings lower and again run all parts through it. Continue on progressively thinner settings, skipping a setting each time, until at the lowest setting. Between rollings, allow the dough to lay out flat, unfolded, on a lightly floured surface. You should wind up with strips of dough as wide as your rollers and quite long - probably several feet long.

Take a strip of dough and lay it out on a lightly floured surface. Paint the surface with the lard and butter mixer. Be generous; most will cook out later.

Roll up the painted strip into a tight cylinder. Try to pull the sides of the strip to coax it into being a bit wider than it is now ... maybe up to 9 inches wide if you can do that without tearing holes in the dough. The important thing, however, is to get a nice tight roll, with the lard and butter completely covering one surface. Any dry spots will cause trouble for you later.

Before you get the first sheet completely rolled, paint another sheet and join it to the last unrolled end of the first sheet. You're trying to make one continuous rolled sheet. No need to pinch the dough - just overlap the second sheet onto the first by an inch or so. Continue doing this until all the dough is formed into one 9 inch (or so) wide, thick, tight roll/cylinder. It will be about 2 or 2-1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until cold and set - several hours. (If you wish, you can let everything stay in the fridge overnight. Some say you can even freeze the dough, but I find that sorta changes it .... and not for the better.

And save the leftover lard and butter mixture; you'll need it later. If you took the overnight option, refrigerate the lard/butter too, but make sure it is completely back to room temperature before doing anything else.

When you're ready to rock and roll again, preheat your oven to 400. Make sure you have a rack in the middle of the oven.

Use two cookie sheets or sheet pans. Line them with parchment or a silpat.

Take the dough, nice and cold, and slice it into 1/2 inch thick disks. Put the filling, also still cold, into a pastry bag with no tip in it.

Forming:

Work one disk at a time. Place it on the counter and flatten it a bit. Keep it even and round. Make it about 35% to 50% bigger than it was. Place the flattened disk of dough in the palm of your hand.

Now here's the artful part .... form the disk into a cone by sliding the layers. I cup my hand and kinda, sorta push the middle of the disk in. When you're done, you'll have a conical shaped thing ... a stumpy dunce hat, if you will. Fill this with the filling. There's no need to close the end, but don't add so much filling that it overflows. See the picture .... that's about right. If anything, err on the side of underfilling. There is little oven spring to this, and the filling is way too thick to even think about running as you bake these.

Repeat this for all the disks, laying the filled ones on your pan. Now paint each one with the butter/lard mixture.

(Note ... while I don't suggest freezing the dough or the filling separately, I have frozen these fully assembled, but unbaked. They'll easily keep a month in the freezer. Since this recipe will make about 18 pastries, and since these are R.I.C.H you may want to freeze some for later enjoyment. If you freeze them, let them thaw completely in the fridge before baking them. Alternately, bake them from frozen, but increase the time to compensate .... maybe 35 or 40 minutes instead of 20 to 25 minutes.)

Bake one pan at a time. Do not do one pan above the other ... it won't work properly. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes at 400, until a deep golden brown.

Remove the first batch and bake the second.

These are best if eaten slightly warm, although they're great at room temperature, too. But warm is even better.

You can reheat them by baking again for maybe ten minutes or so at 350.

As you can see, this is an involved project (as was typing this!) but for my money this is the height of pastry making. It dwarfs baba au rhum and cannoli (the most popular of the Italian pastries - but waaaaaay easier to make).

They were also my mother's favorite. This one's for you, Mom! (looking up)

Ciao bene!:hi: