Sfogliatelle

How Sfogliatelle are made

Master Pastry Chef

Sfogliatelle – Have you ever wondered how this wonderful “Sweet or Dolce”  is made? This video features a master pastry maker who with English subtitles explains how to create spectacular Sfogliatelle. 

The sfogliatelle Santa Rosa was created in the monastery of Santa Rosa in Conca dei Marini in the province of Salerno, Italy, in the 17th century. Pasquale Pintauro, a pastry chef from Naples, acquired the original recipe and began selling the pastries in his shop in 1818.

Sfogliatelle is the plural form of Sfogliatella. This is a shell-shaped filled pastry native to Campania. Sfogliatella means “small, thin leaf/layer”, as the pastry’s texture resembles stacked leaves. There is a distinction to be made between lobster tail and sfogliatella, as they do not refer to the same pastry. The lobster tail exists only in the United States and generally refers to a cream filled, larger pastry.

When creating the sfogliatella (pronounced SFOLYAHTELLAH) in English) the dough is stretched out on a large table, or flattened with a pasta maker. Then the dough is brushed with a fat (butter, lard, shortening, margarine, or a mixture). After that it is then rolled into a log (much like a Swiss roll, but with many more layers). Disks are cut from the end, shaped to form pockets, and filled. The pastry is baked until the layers separate, forming the sfogliatella’s characteristic ridges.

Recipes for the dough and filling vary. Fillings include orange-flavored ricotta, almond paste and candied peel of citron.

In Neapolitan cuisine, there are two kinds of the pastry: “sfogliatella riccia” (“curly”), the “normal” version, and “sfogliatella frolla”. The latter is a less labor-intensive pastry that uses a shortcrust dough and does not form the sfogliatella’s characteristic layers.

A variation named aragosta (in the United States “lobster tail”) also exists, with the same crust but a sweeter filling. Filling such as French cream, similar to whipped cream but much different that a true Sfogliatella. 

Watch  this interesting and informative video on the Creation of Sfogliatelle