Crostata
Crostata is a classic Italian cake or pie. Historically, it was also prepared as a savory, meaty variant, and different doughs were also used. Nowadays, it is a shortbread cake with a crispy base and a sweet filling. The fillings vary widely from berries to various jams and chocolate. I first had a crostata in Tuscany for Mark Liecht’s birthday, and as always with Italian food, I loved the simplicity of the cake the most.
This cake can be made using a rimmed cake pan as I did, but it can also be made as a round or square cake pan. Many nations around the world make a similar cake, but the preparation methods and fillings are different.
Preparation time: About 45 minutes
Level: Easy
Quantity: One 24 cm diameter cake
Ingredients:
170 g of cold butter
330 g of flour
120 g of sugar
1 egg and 2 egg yolks, one egg for brushing the cake batter
Grated peel of one lemon
1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
0.25 teaspoons of sea salt
500 g of apricot jam or any thicker jam you like.
Freshly squeezed juice of 0.5 lemon
Preparation:
- Chop butter and mix with flour, sugar, vanilla sugar and salt.
- Mix flour and butter until a uniform fine crumb is formed. You can also use a food processor for this, but it only takes a few minutes by hand.
- Add egg and egg yolks and grated lemon peel.
- Mix everything into a smooth dough and place in the refrigerator at +4 degrees C so that the dough hardens a little and is easy to handle.
- Divide the dough into two parts, a little less than 2/3 of the dough in the bottom of the mold. On a floured work surface, roll the dough into a disk about 0.5 cm thick, break the disk in half, this way it is easy to lift it into the cake pan.
- Put the dough in the cake mold and line the mold evenly, cut the edge evenly, save the remaining dough.
- Mix the apricot jam with a spoon, add lemon juice and pour the jam on the cake base.
- Roll the remaining dough into a oval form 0,5 cm thick, cut strips to cover the surface of the cake crosswise. You can use different patterns and ways of covering the dough, according to what you like.
- Beat the egg and brush the strips covering the cake.
- Bake the cake at 180 degrees C until the strips covering the cake start to brown nicely, it takes about 35-40 minutes.
- Carefully remove the cake from the oven. The jam inside the cake is boiling and very hot.
- Let the cake cool completely, ideally overnight, then the cake will be tastiest.
Ready!!
