Take Time to Smell the Pitta ‘mpigliata Roses

We had a lot of fun making a sweet treat this week in Kitchen Chemistry!  Pitta ‘mpigliata can be described as somewhat of an Italian cinnamon roll, but the crunchy walnuts paired with the chewy cranberries really puts it in a whole different league for me.  Here’s a look at our process and delicious final product!

We began by combining the following ingredients to make our dough:

1/2 pound (about 2-1/4 cups) of cake flour

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup red wine

1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg yolk (save the egg white to brush over the ‘roses’ while they are baking)

3/4 tsp baking powder

We used a standing mixer with a dough hook to knead the dough for about ten minutes.  This process of kneading allowed for some good gluten to form and gave our dough the desired smooth and elastic texture we desired.

The cake flour we used had a protein content that was around 10% or 3g of protein for every 32g.  This is on the higher end for cake flour but is still much less than bread flour.  Protein content determines the stiffness of the dough, so by using cake flour we ended up with looser dough than if we had used bread flour.  Since we were making a desert, this looser dough was what we needed.

We added the water first and then the olive oil.  Because water and olive oil do not mix, adding olive oil allowed us to create a dough that was pliable without being sticky.  We were able to layer and roll those layers together without having them stick to each other because of the resistance of the oil to the water.  The water was still necessary for the formation of gluten, but we were able to limit our gluten formation with the oil so that it didn’t get too sticky.

Once we were done kneading, we let our dough rest for a few minutes.

Instead of yeast to help the dough puff up, we used baking powder to create a similar effect.  Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate and some form of acid, so when water is added the acid gives up an H+ and produces carbon dioxide.  This is how the dough is able to puff up.

While letting the dough rest, we made our filling using the following ingredients:

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tsp cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling

1 zested lemon peel 

1 cup of finely chopped nuts 

1/2 cup of chopped dried cranberries

We simply combined all of these ingredients in a small bowl and then set it aside to roll out the dough.  Our dough was very easy to work with and we rolled it out to about 1/8th of an inch thickness on our flowered countertop.  Once we had out desired thickness, we cleaned things up a bit by cutting off the edges to make a nice rectangle.

We then drizzled and spread some honey over our dough before adding a generous amount of the filling we had made earlier.

In order to make the beautiful and delicious looking roses we cut our rectangle  down the middle and then folded the two long pieces in half, trapping all of that sweetness inside.  We then rolled the strips from one end to the other very carefully to make the desired spiraling flower effect.

We baked our roses for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.  For the last 15 minutes, we used the egg whites we set aside earlier to egg wash our roses and give them a nice golden color.  After our baking time was up, we had beautiful, crisp Pitta ‘mpigliata roses!!

Here are our final thoughts and reactions on the dessert:

Click HERE to see our reflection video!