A classic Italian pastry consisting of layers of wafer thin pastry formed into shells and filled with a cranberry, cinnamon, and orange flavoured ricotta mixture. Allow plenty of time for chilling and resting.
Place the flour in a mixing bowl and rub in the butter. Add the salt, water and honey. Mix until the dough starts to come together.
Tip out onto a work surface (the dough will be quite crumbly at this point) and knead well for at least 10 minutes to form a firm, stiff dough. Cover and leave to rest for at least 2 hours.
Melt the butter or lard. Cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. Starting with the widest gap, pass one piece of dough through the pasta roller several times fold in half after each time.
Once you have passed it through a few times you should have a piece of dough that is almost as wide as the rollers. Now you can start rolling it thinner. Each time reducing the gap between the rollers until you have a long very thin length of dough .
Brush the dough generously with melted butter and start to roll up as tightly as possible like a Swiss roll, stretching the dough wider as you roll it up.
Roll a second piece of the dough as before. Starting with a wide gap and then decreasing the gap until the pastry is very thin. Brush with melted butter then place the rolled up pastry at one end and continue to roll the pastry around the log .
Repeat with two more pieces of pastry, then wrap the pastry log up with cling film and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight. Do the same with the remaining four pieces of dough so that you have two logs chilling.
Make the Filling
Place the semolina, sugar, milk and cinnamon in a small saucepan and heat gently stirring until the mixture thickens.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and ricotta together then beat in the chopped cranberries and orange zest. Then gradually beat in the semolina mixture.
Take one log out of the refrigerator, trim the thinner ends then cut the log into 12 slices. Push the centre of the slice with your thumb and at the same time use your fingers to pull the pastry into a cone shape.
Place a spoonful of the ricotta mixture into the cone. Then punch the edges of the pastry together to close. Place on a baking sheet. Repeat until you have filled and shaped 24 shells.
Preheat the oven to 200℃ (190℃ fan)/400°F/gas mark 6. Bake the sfogliatella for 20 minutes or until crisp and golden.
Allow to cool before serving. Dust lightly with icing sugar if desired.