La Crostata
Instructions
Mix the flour and sugar; cream the butter. Combine the ingredients, handling them as little as possible to keep the butter from melting (a pastry blender makes this easier). If it's more convenient for you to make the dough a day ahead, do so because it improves with age; it should in any case rest for at least an hour.
Once the dough has rested, butter a flat-bottomed pan about 12 inches across (if you have one elegant enough to double as a serving dish, use it), and preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C). Roll the dough out somewhere between a quarter and a half inch thick; work quickly, without working the dough overmuch lest it become crumbly upon baking. Set aside the cuttings to make decorative strips (if you're making a jam crostata) or shape them into fanciful cookie shapes.
Now, depending upon what you are making, your paths divide.
For a jam crostata you'll need:
2 cups good quality fruit jam, such as strawberry, raspberry, or plum. Baking the jam obviously concentrates it; therefore, if it's quite thick, heat it in a pan with a little water to dilute it. Also, if the jam's very sweet to begin with, the crostata will be cloyingly so; in this case heat it over the stove and stir in lemon juice to taste to temper the sweetness. Spread jam on the dough in the pan. Reroll the cuttings, cut the sheet into half-inch strips with a serrated pastry wheel, and lay the strips in a crosshatch pattern over the jam. When you've finished laying out your strips of dough, lay a thin ring of dough around the border of the crostata and tamp it down with a fork to pattern the crostata's rim.
Bake the crostata for about 20 minutes, or until the dough begins to brown. Do not let it overbake, or the pasta frolla will become hard as stone, and the jam will become as sticky as glue. A friend of mine's mother once discovered she had overbaked a crostata and told everyone not to eat it. But his grandfather wouldn't listen. Conversation came to a halt when he returned his slice, with his dentures firmly embedded in it, to his plate.
To make a crostata di frutta you will need to begin by preparing the dough and assembling the fruit, which should be varied, perfect in appearance, and perfectly ripe (for example, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, blueberries, peaches, apples, pears, kiwifruit, bananas, oranges, grapes, and so on -- the important thing is variety). Figure you'll need at least a quart of sliced fruit, and perhaps more (what you don't use will make an excellent fruit cocktail).
Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C). Roll out the dough as above and put it in your pan. Cover it with a layer of ovenproof paper and spread 2 cups of dried beans over it, which will keep it flat as it bakes. Bake the base for 20-25 minutes, remove it from the oven, remove the beans, and let it cool.
You will next need to make the syrup and the crema pasticcera.
Crema pasticcera, pastry cream, is one of the basic ingredients used in Italian pastries and cakes. It's not difficult to make, though it does require care and attention lest it curdle. Fernanda Gosetti, author of Il Dolcissimo, suggests you use a copper pot because it conducts heat better, and adds that if you make crema pasticcera frequently you should invest in a round-bottomed pot because its entire contents will be accessible tot he whisk or spoon. She also notes that the crema should be transferred to a bowl as soon as it's ready, because it will continue to cook in the pot.
Set all but 1/2 cup of the milk to warm over a slow burner with the vanilla bean. In the meantime, lightly whisk the yolks in a bowl to break them. Strain the flour into the bowl, whisking gently, and making sure that no lumps form. Whisk in the sugar too, and then the remaining half cup of milk, keeping a wary eye for lumps.
By this time the milk on the stove will be about ready to boil. Fish out and discard the vanilla bean, and slowly whisk the milk into the egg-and-milk mixture. Return the cream to the pot and the pot to the fire, and continue cooking over a low flame, stirring gently, until it barely reaches a slow boil. Count to 120 while stirring constantly and it's done. (Note -- depending on your eggs and milk it may thicken to the proper consistency before it boils. If it reaches roughly the consistency of commercially prepared plain yogurt of the sort that will pour from the cup it's done).
Transfer it to a bowl and let it cool, gently stirring it often to keep a skin from forming across top.
As a final note, if you cover the milk after heating it and let it sit for ten minutes covered it will absorb more bouquet from the vanilla bean. Also, you can, depending upon what you are going to use the cream for, flavor it with other things, for example 2 coffee beans or the zest of a half a lemon.
Bring everything to a gentle boil and cook the syrup down until some dribbled from a spoon forms filaments. Fish out and discard the zest.
Wash the fruit, pat it dry, and slice it (the strawberries into halves, and the remainder as you prefer. Spread the crema pasticcera over the pastry dough, and then lay the sliced fruit over it in what ever pattern you find most pleasing. When you are done gently brush the fruit with the syrup and you are done.
Either of these crostate should serve 6-8, though this could be a gross overestimate.
