Grandma's Cake
Instructions
Begin to prepare the sweet shortcrust pastry: in a bowl, sift the powdered sugar, the flour and add a pinch of salt. Now add the diced butter... neither too soft nor too cold, and the 4 yolks. And knead until you have a smooth and even mixture.
And here is our shortcrust pastry, smooth and even as you can see, now wrap with cling film and put in the fridge to rest for about 1 hour. If it's flat, it will cool sooner... and now, in the fridge!
Move on to prepare the custard, so put the milk in a saucepan, keeping aside one glass, add the grated zest of half a lemon, and the vanilla pod, which has been cut into halves to remove the inner seeds. At this point, leave it to steep and bring almost to a boil: the milk must not boil. Then, put the remaining milk in another bowl and add the yolks, the flour and 1 cups (250 g) of sugar.
When it's almost to a boil, strain the milk to remove any remains of lemon zest or vanilla pod. Then pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and pass it through a sieve, to avoid any lumps.
When the custard is thick enough, turn off the heat and pour into a large shallow oven dish, to make it cool as soon as possible. To speed up the process, we'll put it in the fridge, but cover with cling film and make it adhere to the surface, to prevent the formation of a film. Place the custard in the fridge until cool or slightly lukewarm.
Now, move on to assemble our cake, so take a pretty shallow cake pan of about 9-10 inches in diameter, grease with butter and flour, then roll out 2/3 of the dough to a thickness of about inch (1/2 cm). Cut out a circle and place it on the bottom of the cake pan, then cut off the excess dough. Poke with a fork so that the dough doesn't puff up while baking... after that fill with the cooled custard.
With the remaining dough, roll out another inch thick circle, slightly larger than the cake pan. Then wrap it around the rolling pin and put it on top as a lid... then cut off the excess dough with the rolling pin, in this way. Press your fingers along the edge of the cake to make a sort of frame, then poke the surface with a fork to avoid the formation of air bubbles while baking... brush the surface with milk or water, if you prefer... and finally sprinkle the pine nuts on top. Now bake the cake at 350F (180C) for about 40-50 minutes.
40-50 min. -- 350F (180C)
The Grandma's cake is ready! As a final touch, sprinkle with powdered sugar and remember to keep it in the fridge or in a closed container.
