Naples' #1 Pastry

I swear, I don't think about food and eating every minute of the day... just most moments of the day. :) I recently found myself daydreaming about an amazing pastry I had during our recent trip to Italy: the sfogliatelle. We were leaving Naples, about to get on the train back to Rome when I realized that I still hadn't sampled Naples' 2nd most famous food (the 1st being pizza, of course)! So I grabbed one from the snack bar in the train station, not expecting much. When I took the warm, heavy package from the cashier, I knew that it would be good. (I later learned that a well-known bakery near the train station delivers fresh baked pastries to the snack bar all day).

I've had many a croissant, puff pastry, layered pastry thing in my life, but nothing like this. The outer layers were flaky and crispy and an excellent balance to the warm sweet creamy center that had some sort of orange essence to it. I did give one little bite to MO, then proceeded to devour the rest of the large pastry in a few short minutes.

I still don't know exactly what is in the filling or how to pronounce it's name, but I do know why Naples is famous for the sfogliatelle.