Editor’s note: In this monthly column staff writer James Heflin indulges his sweet tooth by sampling desserts made at area restaurants.
It’s best to take some things slow, and moving away from pure chocolate to non-chocolate desserts requires a particular ease in the saddle.
That’s why I started non-chocolate-ward with the chocolate cannoli at La Fiorentina. It’s got that certain — well, not savoir faire, but whatever they say in Italian — style of the boot-shaped peninsula, but then the whole business is drenched in chocolate. A good starting point on my voyage toward the eventual destination: La Fiorentina’s sfogliatelle.
La Fiorentina’s cannoli recipe has been around a long time, says Mauro Daniele, general manager of the Northampton bakery.
“My great-grandfather was a master baker in southern Italy. My grandfather came over and started a bakery in the South End (of Springfield).”
That was in 1946. These days, La Fiorentina’s got three locations including one in Longmeadow. The Northampton store opened a mere quarter-century ago.
A good chocolate cannoli is, in some respects, the well-shod Italian cousin of the brasher American Boston Cream doughnut. It’s got creamy filling, but it’s no half-hearted custard or airy nothing. It is instead a dense, chocolate chip-studded ricotta cheese, whipped into a sugary, punch-you-in-the-face starring role.
It’s got fried dough, too, with a hint of that same flavor that makes doughnuts doughnut-y. But a Fiorentina cannoli delivers plenty of crunch, unlike the soggier attempts that are all too common. There’s nothing shy about a good cannoli.
The chocolate cannoli’s up-front style is almost entirely countered by its cousin, the puff cannoli. La Fiorentina’s puff cannoli arrives with its ends coated in hazelnuts. And for this chocolate junky, the hazelnut, with its echo of Nutella, paves the way beautifully to the chocolate-free world. Though it’s still a daunting world.
The puff cannoli, thank heavens, proves that all is not lost without the cocoa bean. It’s all but ethereal next to the regular cannoli.
Though they’re both called cannoli, Daniele says, “They really have nothing in common except that they both have nuts and they’re tubular.”
He explains that the cannoli is fried, the puff cannoli baked. The regular one has ricotta filling, and the other a much lighter pastry cream. The puff cannoli has a croissant-like flake, and its chilled cream is ephemeral — a peak of vanilla that quickly fades into the bready, buttery flavor of the pastry. It seems like a cannoli for when you can’t quite take getting roughed up by the calorie load of the standard version.
Maybe it’s just because mine was covered in chocolate, but for this diner, the dense, fried cannoli took pride of place.
Daniele says the Italian baking tradition differs in some noticeable ways from its French and American counterparts. “The pastries are completely different. There are a lot more creams, custards, cheeses versus apple pie or chocolate chip cookies.”
There’s also, he says, many more choices on offer at a typical Italian bakery. The display case at his place proves the point handily — there are rum cakes, mousse cakes, almond cookies, tarts and a rainbow of other confections.
“Each region in Italy has its own specialty,” Daniele said. “We take items from all over southern Italy. Some are what you’d get out of any bakery in Naples, and others are our own spin on things.”
Chief among the specialties of the Naples region, Daniele says, is sfogliatella. That rather forbidding word is said something like “shvoyatella,” and it’s got a long history.
“It was invented by monks and nuns,” Daniele said.
And indeed, the prevailing story — a little research turns up variations on the theme — is that it was invented in a monastery or convent in the 17th century, and a Neapolitan baker took it to his own shop, where it grew in popularity.
Sfogliatella (that’s the singular, and “sfogliatelle” the plural) is bold, even baroque. It looks like a pastry designed by the same dude who decorated St. Peter’s Basilica. Which seems about right for the country that more or less sponsored the Renaissance and its ensuing complications. It’s sometimes known as “lobster tail,” and its many layers make it look like something you might want to hold off on eating, lest you destroy a work of art.
Once you decide to tear down the edifice, you’re met with a remarkably crunchy experience where the many layers have cooked brown on the edges. Further in, the dough becomes more chewy. And inside all that is a cavern of moist, dense ricotta filling. The principal taste is orange.
The rather unexpected thing about sfogliatelle is its mildness. It’s got a whole progression of textures, from the crunchy exterior to the smooth filling, but beyond that citrus note, the flavors don’t demand attention like those of other traditional Italian items like rum cake or cannoli.
At first, that seemed like a negative. Then I found the reason.
Blame the Italian predilection for taking the day’s coffee in four million thimbles-full rather than an American bucket-sized mug. If you’re only drinking a molecule of coffee at a time, you want that coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in. And when you pair a proper, unadulterated espresso with sfogliatelle, the flavors conspire. The orange ricotta cuts through the strong coffee; it’s as if both flavors get amplified. It’s a marriage so happy you may cry.
Taken that way, La Fiorentina’s sfogliatelle is so successful a pastry it’s worth trying to say it the right way. And that’s saying a lot.
Have you discovered a confection at a local eatery that makes you want to skip the main course? Email James Heflin at jheflin@gazettenet.com.