Snowflakes are a trendy Neapolitan dessert invented by the Poppella pastry shop in the Rione Sanità: the original recipe is secret.
Ciro’s grandfather, the current owner of Poppella – the most famous pastry shop in the Sanità neighborhood in Naples– was the king of taralli sugna e pepe. His taralli shop has been open since 1920, but he left bread to follow his passion: sweets.
▶Small brioches filled with milk cream, whipped cream, and ricotta, delicious and loved by everyone to the point that the recipe has been replicated by all the pastry shops in Naples, including the Casa Infante chain that renamed the snowflakes “clouds”.
Another dessert from the Neapolitan tradition on the blog:
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Rest time: 2 Hours
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: Piece
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 3/4 cup Manitoba flour
- 1 tbsp fresh yeast
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3 tbsp butter
- to taste salt
- to taste powdered sugar
- 6 oz ricotta
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar
- 2/3 cup whipped cream
- 3/4 cup milk
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp honey
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
Tools
- 1 Piping bag
Steps
Prepare the dough: dissolve the fresh yeast in warm milk, add the flours, sugar, a pinch of salt, and chopped butter.
Knead the dough and let it rise for 2 hours.
Form 1 oz balls from the dough.
Brush with egg yolk and milk and bake in a static oven at 355°F for 15 minutes.
For the ricotta cream: mix the ricotta with powdered sugar and whipped cream.
For the milk cream: in a saucepan over low heat, warm the milk and add the sugar, honey, and cornstarch. Cook for a few minutes until thickened.
Combine the two creams.
Fill the small rolls while they are still warm with the help of a piping bag.
Dust with powdered sugar.
Exotic Variant:
If you want to try a more exotic version, you can replace the ricotta and milk cream with the sangkhaya Thai coconut cream made with coconut cream, eggs, and sugar, cooked on its own or inside a hollowed-out kabocha squash, often colored with pandan leaves.
