sfogliatella

A sfogliatella is pulled and folded into dozens of paper-thin layers that shatter when bitten. The word describes this structure precisely: sfoglia is the thin sheet of pasta or pastry dough that a cook rolls as flat as possible, and sfogliatella is simply the diminutive, little thin sheet. The pastry is named for its own anatomy.

The word traces from Latin folia, the plural of folium (leaf), through Old Italian foglia. This root generated foglio (the Italian word for page or sheet), the botanical term fogliame (foliage), and the technical pastry word sfogliatura, meaning the act of laminating dough into layers. The metaphor of stacked leaves is built into the pastry's name at every level.

The pastry is credited to the convent of Santa Rosa at Conca dei Marini on the Amalfi Coast, where nuns made it sometime in the 17th century. A Neapolitan pastry maker named Pasquale Pintauro acquired the recipe around 1818 and opened a shop on Via Toledo in Naples. His shop became the commercial standard, and the sfogliatella moved from monastic kitchen to street food.

Two forms compete in Neapolitan bakeries. The sfogliatella riccia has the ruffled, crunchy shell made from laminated pastry; the sfogliatella frolla uses a softer shortcrust. Both hold the same filling: ricotta mixed with semolina, candied citrus peel, and cinnamon. The riccia is more difficult to produce and is considered the original form.