Sfogliatella


R and I took the kids to the North End last snowy Saturday for lunch and pastries. We went to Mike's Pastries on Hanover Street because we'd heard (separately) that it was the place to go. They had a huge selection of baked goods, and it was fun to watch them wrap the box in string, but my carrot cake frosting was a tad too sweet-- in fact, I'm not sure it was cream cheese at all.

My friend Grateful Mama says that Mike's is a tourist trap, and there's a much better bakery near there, but its name has escaped me.

In any case, here is a dessert I had never seen in all of my sweet eating California days-- or even in Italy for that matter: sfogliatella, or lobster tail.

As you can see, there's some debate among Kitchen Unplugged's commenters about what constitutes a lobster tail or sfogliatella, and even whether or not they are the same pastry.

I'm sorry to say that I did not order this sweet crustacean from Mike's because I wasn't sure how it was filled (I don't prefer custards, and honestly, sea creature-shaped pastry isn't all that appealing on first sight), and our counter woman was somewhat stern with us. She was a wiz with that string, though.

Now that I know what's in the thing, we must return.

Comments

patriciacaspers said…
Grateful Mama says Antico Forno is the best North End spot for lunch and should be followed up with pastries from Cafe Vittorio.
Anonymous said…
I love sweets and those pastries look wonderful to my eye. Today, a woman a work with made chocolate covered peanut butter balls and man it was hard to contain myself. I only ate three and that's pretty good for me. How do pronouce "sfogliatella?" Are there many Italians on the East coast? Love, Mom