Neapolitan Layered Pastry | Sfogliatella Riccia Napoletana

Name: Sfogliatella Riccia Napoletana (Neapolitan Layered Pastry)
Prep time: 1 h 30 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 14 h
Yield: 20 sfogliatelle
Cuisine: Italian, Campania
Ingredients: Bread flour, 17.6 oz (500 g); Cold water, 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp (195 ml); Honey, mild, 1 tsp (7 g); Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g); Lard, softened, 9 oz (250 g); Unsalted butter, softened, 1 1/2 oz (40 g), optional; Extra lard for hands and trays, 1 oz (30 g); Water, 1 3/4 cups (415 ml); Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g); Semolina, 5.3 oz (150 g); Sheep milk ricotta, drained, 8.8 oz (250 g); Granulated sugar, 5.3 oz (150 g); Egg, large, 1; Candied orange peel, diced, 2.6 oz (75 g); Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp (1.5 g); Vanilla extract, 1 tsp (5 ml); Grated zest of 1 lemon; Powdered sugar for dusting, 1/4 cup (30 g)

Sep 29

11 min read

Updated: Oct 24

Sfogliatella Riccia Napoletana (Neapolitan Layered Pastry)

Sfogliatella riccia is the pastry Naples is known by: a ribbed shell of dozens of leaves as thin as paper, shattering under the first bite, wrapped around a warm filling of semolina and ricotta scented with cinnamon and candied orange.

Nothing in it is difficult on its own. The difficulty is patience, because the sheet has to be rolled until you can read through it, and the rolled cylinder has to be genuinely cold before a single disc comes off it.

Yield: 20 sfogliatelle. Prep: 1 hour 30 minutes. Rest: 12 hours minimum. Bake: 25 minutes. Total: about 14 hours including resting. Difficulty: advanced. Course: dolce. Region: Campania, Naples and the Amalfi Coast.

The Story

The pastry was born in a convent, not in a pastry shop. The nuns of Santa Rosa da Lima at Conca dei Marini, on the ridge above the Amalfi Coast, kept a semolina porridge left from lunch instead of throwing it out, enriched it with dried fruit, liqueur and lemon, and closed it inside a hood of leafed dough. The shape copied the monastic hood they wore, and the sweet took the name of the house: santarosa. It was sold through the grille of the monastery to travellers on the coast road below, and for well over a century that grille was the only place on earth where you could buy one. The convent version was larger, filled out with pastry cream and topped with a cherry in syrup, and it is still made along that coast under its own name.

Naples took it in 1818. Pasquale Pintauro kept a tavern on Via Toledo, came into possession of the convent recipe, and did to it what a city baker does to a country sweet: he stripped it. The pastry cream went. The cherry went. The hood flattened into a fan that could be held in one hand and eaten walking. The filling came down to semolina, ricotta, sugar, candied peel and cinnamon, five things and nothing else. He turned the tavern into a pastry shop, the queue formed on Via Toledo, and it has never really stopped. There is still a Pintauro at that address, and the city still argues about who makes the best one, an argument that takes in the Sanita, the Vomero and about forty other addresses.

Riccia and frolla separated later, and the split is technical rather than geographical. Riccia is the leafed one, curly by name, built from a rolled cylinder and eaten partly for the noise it makes. Frolla is the identical filling in a shortcrust shell, smooth, rounder, quicker, invented for people who wanted the flavour without wearing half of it. Neapolitans eat both at breakfast, standing at the counter, and they ask for it caura, hot, because the shell is at its peak in the first twenty minutes out of the oven and declines steadily after that. Lard is not negotiable in either version. It is the working fat of Neapolitan baking, it takes higher heat than butter without browning, and in the riccia it is the only reason the leaves come apart at all.

Ingredients

For the dough

Bread flour, high in gluten, 17.6 oz (500 g)
Cold water, 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp (195 ml)
Honey, mild, 1 tsp (7 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)

For laminating the sheet

Lard, soft enough to spread like ointment, 9 oz (250 g)
Unsalted butter, softened, 1 1/2 oz (40 g), optional, for aroma only
Extra lard for greasing hands and trays, 1 oz (30 g)

For the semolina and ricotta filling

Water, 1 3/4 cups (415 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
Semolina, coarse ground durum, 5.3 oz (150 g)
Sheep milk ricotta, drained overnight in a sieve, 8.8 oz (250 g)
Granulated sugar, 5.3 oz (150 g)
Egg, large, 1
Candied orange peel, cut into very small dice, 2.6 oz (75 g)
Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp (1.5 g)
Vanilla extract, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1 lemon

For finishing

Powdered sugar for dusting, 1/4 cup (30 g)

Preparation

Step 1

Put the flour, cold water, honey and salt in a stand mixer with the dough hook and work on low speed for about 10 minutes. The dough will look wrong: dry, scrappy, refusing to come together. Leave it alone and let the hook do the work. It finishes smooth, very firm and almost rubbery, at a hydration of roughly 39 percent, and that stiffness is the whole point. A soft dough cannot be rolled thin enough without tearing.

Step 2

Shape it into a tight ball, wrap it closely in film and refrigerate it for at least 2 hours, or overnight if you can. This rest relaxes the gluten you have just built, and without it the sheet will spring back faster than you can roll it. Take it out 15 minutes before you start rolling so the surface loses its chill but the core stays cool.

Step 3

Cut the dough in two and keep one half covered. Flatten the first piece and take it through a pasta machine, setting by setting, down to the second thinnest notch, or roll it by hand on a lightly floured bench if you have the patience and the arm. The target is a sheet you can see the bench through. Hold it up to the light: if it is not translucent, it is not ready.

Step 4

Brush the whole sheet with softened lard, edge to edge, in a layer thin enough to be barely visible. Roll it up from one long side into a tight cylinder, keeping the tension constant, then attach the second sheet to the end of the first and keep rolling so the two become one log. Wrap the log and refrigerate it for a minimum of 8 hours, or overnight.

Step 5

Bring the water and salt to a gentle boil and rain in the semolina while whisking hard. Cook it for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until it pulls away from the sides in one mass. Spread it on a tray to cool completely. Then beat it with the drained ricotta, sugar, egg, cinnamon, vanilla, lemon zest and candied orange until smooth, and chill the filling until it is cold and firm.

Step 6

Trim the ends of the log and cut discs about 1/2 in (12 mm) thick, keeping the rest in the refrigerator. Press each disc between greased thumbs, rotating and pushing outward, so the layers slide over one another and the disc opens into a shallow cone. Fill each cone with about 1 tbsp (25 g) of filling and pinch the opening closed.

Step 7

Set the shaped pastries on a tray lined with baking paper, spaced apart, and bake at 355F (180C) in a convection oven, or 375F (190C) in a static one, for 22 to 25 minutes. Do not open the door in the first 12 minutes. They are done when the ridges are deep amber and visibly separated and the base sounds hard when tapped.

Step 8

Slide them onto a rack the moment they come out so the bases do not steam against the tray. Let them stand 10 minutes, no longer, and dust with powdered sugar just before serving. Sugar on a hot pastry dissolves into a wet film and costs you both the look and the contrast.

Plating

This is counter food and it should be plated like counter food. One sfogliatella per person on a small plate, ridged side up and seam side down so the shell shows its fan of leaves. Never stack them: the weight of a second pastry crushes the ridges of the first and the crust it took two days to build collapses into flakes.

Dust with powdered sugar through a fine sieve seconds before serving, lightly, so the ridges keep their definition instead of vanishing under white. Serve warm, close to 105F (40C), when the shell is brittle and the filling soft but not runny. Espresso is the only accompaniment Naples recognises and it is the right one: the bitterness resets the palate between bites of a very sweet filling.

Professional Technique

The technical heart of this pastry is a sheet rolled to the edge of transparency and a fat that turns to steam inside it. You are not making puff pastry: there is no butter block, no folding, no turns. There is one continuous sheet, taken by hand or through a pasta machine until you can genuinely read print through it, brushed with softened lard and then rolled into a single tight cylinder. Every rotation of that cylinder lays one film of lard between two films of dough, and the finished log holds fifty or more of those interfaces.

What happens in the oven follows from that geometry. The lard films carry a little water and sit between two sheets that have almost none. At 355F (180C) that water flashes to steam and drives the two dough films apart while the lard fries the facing surfaces as they separate. The leaves are pushed open individually, from the inside, and because the cylinder was cut across its rotations the pressure escapes sideways: the cone opens along its rings and the ridges rise. This is where riccia parts company with frolla, a single shortcrust with nothing inside it to separate and no lift at all.

The long refrigeration of the log is not a rest for the gluten, it is a structural requirement. Warm lard smears under the knife and welds the rings into one mass, and a warm disc tears instead of sliding when pressed. Cold lard stays discrete, the disc shears cleanly, and the layers move over each other like a deck of cards. Cut the log too soon and you get a dense pastry with good flavour and no leaves.

Texture and Moisture Control

Two opposed things share one pastry here: a shell that must be bone dry and brittle, and a filling that must stay soft and moist. They are kept apart by the semolina. Cooked out properly for 8 to 10 minutes, semolina locks water into swollen starch granules and holds it there through baking, which is why the filling does not weep into the layers and soften them from within. Undercooked semolina releases that water in the oven and the inner leaves go soggy while the outer ones brown.

Ricotta is the other moisture risk and it is handled before it ever meets the pan. Drain it overnight in a sieve over a bowl and discard what comes out, because sheep milk ricotta can shed several tablespoons of whey. Undrained, it turns the filling loose, and a loose filling boils and pushes the seam open in the oven. The filling also has to go into the cones cold: cold filling sets the interior while the shell is still expanding, so the two stop influencing each other early.

After the bake, humidity undoes everything. The shell draws moisture from the air within an hour or two and the crack goes flat, so cool on a rack, never in a closed container.

Professional Mise en Place

This pastry is built over two days and nothing is done to order, so the mise en place is a question of scheduling. Roll and laminate on day one, shape and bake on day two.

Equipment and tools

Stand mixer with a dough hook, or a strong arm and 25 minutes
Pasta machine, or a long rolling pin and a clear bench
Thin sharp knife for the discs, wiped between cuts
Fine sieve for the ricotta, a second one for the sugar
Trays, baking paper and a cooling rack

Prepared ahead

Ricotta draining in a sieve, from the night before
Dough mixed and resting, at least 2 hours and up to 1 day
Laminated log wrapped and cold, 8 hours minimum, up to 2 days
Filling cooked, cooled and refrigerated, up to 2 days
Lard left at room temperature for 30 minutes before brushing

Service setup

Oven fully up to temperature before the first disc is cut
Log kept in the refrigerator, brought out a few discs at a time
Filling cold, in a bowl with a small spoon or a piping bag
Rack ready beside the oven, sugar and sieve ready but unused

Chef Tips

Use a strong bread flour and resist the urge to soften the dough. Every gram of water beyond the recipe makes the first ten minutes easier and the sheet weaker, and a sheet that tears cannot be repaired. If the dough fights you it is not too dry, it is not rested enough.

Grease your hands, not the bench, when you open the discs. Lard on the fingers lets the layers slide under pressure, while flour at that stage dries the outside of the disc and makes it crack instead of stretching.

Cut one disc as a test before committing the whole log. Open it and look at the section: if the rings are welded rather than separate, wrap the log and give it another two hours cold. Two hours is cheaper than twenty ruined pastries.

Bake one full tray rather than a half empty oven. Sfogliatelle rise better with company, since the steam they release stops the surfaces drying too early, and a crowded tray browns more evenly.

Common Mistakes

Adding water to soften the dough. A wet dough rolls easily and then tears, and the sheet never reaches the thinness the layers depend on. Work the firm dough for the full 10 minutes and rest it instead.

Cutting the log while it is still soft. Warm lard smears under the knife and glues the rings together, so the pastry bakes dense with no separation. Give it 8 hours cold.

Rolling the sheet too thick. Anything you cannot see the bench through gives three or four heavy layers instead of fifty light ones. Take the machine one notch past what feels safe.

Using an undrained filling. Excess whey boils, forces the seam open and floods the inner leaves. Drain the ricotta overnight and cook the semolina until it leaves the pan.

Opening the oven in the first minutes. The lift comes from steam trapped between the leaves, and losing it early stops the ridges from separating. Keep the door shut for 12 minutes.

Dusting with sugar while they are hot. The sugar melts into a damp glaze and the ridges disappear. Wait 10 minutes and dust just before serving.

Wine Pairing

A sweet pastry needs a wine at least as sweet as its filling, or the wine reads as sour. It also needs acidity for the lard. These four carry both.

Moscato di Noto DOC: The closest aromatic match here. Its orange blossom and citrus peel perfume runs straight into the candied orange of the filling rather than sitting beside it, and the modest alcohol keeps things light after a rich pastry. The residual sugar meets the sugar in the ricotta without turning cloying.

Vin Santo del Chianti Classico DOC: Dried on the vine and aged oxidatively in small barrels, it brings dried fig, walnut and a faint bitter almond finish. That nuttiness answers the toasted semolina in a way a fresh aromatic wine cannot, and its firm acidity scours the lard off the palate between bites. Pour it at about 57F (14C), cooler than dessert wines are usually served.

Malvasia delle Lipari DOC: From the Aeolian islands, with dried apricot, orange marmalade and a saline edge behind the sweetness. The salinity is the point: it cuts across the sugar and keeps each mouthful from building on the last. Its texture is fuller than the Moscato and it stands up to a warm filling rather than being flattened by it.

Recioto di Soave DOCG: Garganega dried on racks, giving honey, quince and white peach with unusually high acidity for a sweet wine. That acidity is what a lard pastry needs, lifting the palate clean while the sweetness stays level with the filling. It is the least perfumed of the four, which suits anyone who finds Moscato too floral against cinnamon.

Storage & Reheating

Baked sfogliatelle are at their best within two hours and acceptable within six. Keep them uncovered at room temperature on a rack, never in a sealed box or a paper bag, because the trapped moisture softens the shell faster than the air does. They will hold for 2 days in the refrigerator in a loosely covered container, but they must be crisped again before they are worth eating.

To bring one back, put it straight from the cold into a 340F (170C) oven for 5 to 7 minutes on a rack, not a tray, so heat reaches the base. A microwave ruins them outright: it steams the leaves into a single soft mass. Shaped unbaked pastries freeze well for up to 1 month, open on a tray first and then bagged, and bake from frozen with 4 minutes added.