How to make Neapolitan curly puff pastry

Tips for organizing processing times

Sfogliatelle cannot be made for just one day, the dough needs rest. My advice is to prepare the shell and filling the day before and organize yourself the following day with the formation of the curly puff pastries and the cooking.

Day 1

First of all, make the dough for the shell.

Pour the flour, water and salt into a bowl and mix vigorously. The dough will seem hard and grainy, that’s how it is, don’t worry. Continue kneading until it forms a ball, grease it lightly with a drizzle of lard and leave it to rest on a cloth for half an hour.

Then take the dough again, work it again, although it seems very hard, don’t worry, press with strength and energy, it will slowly soften

If the puff pastry dough is too hard, grease your hands a little with lard and continue working to make it workable and more malleable.

Finally, form a ball and leave in the fridge wrapped in cling film:

Then let it rest for 2 – 3 hours in the fridge.

Filling for puff pastry

First of all, insert a semolina pan and slowly pour in the milk, stirring with a hand whisk and place on the heat. You should obtain a dense and pasty mixture. Let it cool completely.

Separately, drain the ricotta, if it is too moist, squeeze it with a cloth.

Then mix it with the sugar, the pinch of cinnamon, the semolina mixture and at this point add the wildflower aroma

Be careful that the wildflower aroma can have different intensities depending on the type, you can find my suggestion in the ingredients, but if you don’t find it, add very little at a time! and taste, before adding more, in order to calibrate the taste well. Otherwise you risk ruining the flavor.

Then add the egg yolk, mixing well and finally the candied orange:

Finally, cover with cling film and leave to rest in the fridge.

When the resting time for the puff pastry dough has elapsed, take it out of the fridge and leave at room temperature for half an hour.

How to obtain the very long roll for curly puff pastry

First of all, proceed to roll out your dough with a rolling pin until it forms a short rectangle of maximum 15 cm:

My advice is to use a pasta machine otherwise it will take hours of work. If you don’t have the tool available, arm yourself with patience, but above all precision, to create a rectangle that remains approximately 15 cm in size for the short side and several meters for the long side of 1 mm thickness.

as you stretch the dough it must be compact, non-sticky, smooth, first start from a large thickness on the pasta machine, then medium thickness

When the rectangle becomes too long, roll it up on a rolling pin and gradually unroll it in the pasta machine to thin it, until it reaches 1 mm thickness:

Then, once the very long and thin pastry has been obtained, the typical ‘sfoliatura’ must be carried out to obtain the millerighe of the classic curly puff pastry.

At this point, unroll a part of the dough, widen it slightly laterally as you unroll it and brush it with soft lard at room temperature. As you brush the first piece, roll it up on itself:

proceed in this way: unrolling a piece of dough, brushing with lard and rolling until you obtain the classic very long roll:

At this point, grease it well with lard, wrap it in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge overnight.

Day 2

Make the shell shape of the Neapolitan Sfogliatelle by hand

First of all, place the filling in a piping bag.

Then take the roll of dough again and if you see that the central part is much wider than the two edges, squeeze it a little with your hands to make it uniform.

Then, cut 1cm slices with a sharp knife. This is what pastry chefs call ‘the cap’ of the curly puff pastry

My advice is to cut the extreme triangles to make mini puff pastries, so that you end up with slices that are all more or less the same thickness:

Then grease your hands very well with lard

This step is essential because your hands must slide over the dough.

Then grease each disc by rubbing it well between your palms to thin it.

Finally, with your thumbs, push the central point of your disc outwards, and gradually thin the disc to create the classic triangular shell, empty inside, ready to accommodate the filling.

Then fill each shell with the filling to the brim, it must be very swollen and finally close it by sealing the flaps:

As you make them, place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper:

and cook in a preheated static oven at 180° for about 20 minutes in the central part. If you are using a fan oven, set it to 160° and respect the cooking times indicated!

Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool before sprinkling with icing sugar.

Here’s the real thing Browse it

Neapolitan curly puff pastry

storage

You can store at room temperature for 3 – 4 days. If you keep them in the fridge, the filling will harden slightly, so take care to leave them at room temperature before serving.

If you love this type of dessert, also discover my collection of Pastry Recipes