Italian Crostata

This Italian Crostata is light and buttery with a hint of Vanilla and lemon. Filled with delicious cherry jam and baked to perfection. The flavors combines to create a sweet crumbly cookie-like-tart. It is a perfect afternoon tea time snack, well actually you can eat them at anytime of the day. 😉

So, what is Crostata?
Crostata is an Italian baked tart or pie traditionally filled with jam, fruit or ricotta. The pie is made in a big 23 cm pie dish and they are often blind baked so that they can be filled with pastry cream and then topped with fresh fruit. This is then called Crostata di frutta.

Over the years the pastry has changed and these days it’s more like a sweetened shortcrust pastry.
Shortcrust has a slightly biscuity, crumbly texture that is resistant to soaking up fluids and it is surprisingly sturdy when removed from its tin. This makes them perfect for mini tarts. Personally I think they are more like a cookie than a tart.
I made these in mini disposable round silver foil baking cookie cups. But you can always use mini tart mold. These disposable mini pie molds are made out of aluminum and the size that I used for this recipe was: 6cm x 1.6cm or 2.36 X 0.62 inch.

The dough mixes up with in 10 min, however preparing the little pie-cookies takes some time. Make sure to add the stripes on top of each pie-cookie to create a lattice finish. This just really finish them off nicely. A little tip, refrigerate the Italian Crostata for 30 minutes before baking them. This will help to keep the jam filling in.
Also feel free to use any kind of Jam for this recipe, I just prefer cherry as it really compliments the lemon and vanilla flavors of the crust.

This recipe makes +/- 24 mini pie-cookies.

Enjoy!!

Makes +/- 24 mini pies

Ingredients

For the cookies:

165 g Butter, Room temperature
130 g Sugar, White
1 Egg, Whole
2 Egg yolks
5 ml Vanilla essence
330 g Cake flour, plus extra for rolling out dough
2.5 ml baking powder
Zest of 1 grated Lemon
Pinch of Salt

For the filling:

150 – 200 g Cherry Jam for filling (Or jam of choice)

Directions

Grease 24 mini disposable round silver foil baking cookie cups or mini tart molds (6cmx1.6cm or 2.36 X 0.62 inch), place them on a baking tray and set aside.

Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Now mix in the egg followed by the two egg yolks and the vanilla essence. Mix well.

On a slower speed add the flour, baking powder, lemon zest and salt and mix until combined.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to around 1/2 cm thickness. Using a round circle cookie cutter (6cm in diameter), cut round shapes out. Place the shapes carefully into the baking cookie cups or mini tart molds. Slightly press down and shape into the pie dish leaving a tiny rim.
Then spread the pastry with some jam work carefully not to get jam on the rim. Ideally use 1/3 teaspoon of jam per pie-cookie. To much will cause the jam to boil out once you are baking them.

Make sure to add thin strips of pastry on top of each pie-cookie to create a lattice finish.
Refrigerate the baking tray with the little pie dishes on for 30 minutes, towards the end of the refrigeration time, switch the oven on to 160˚C.
Once the oven is hot, place the baking tray with the little pie dishes on into the oven. Bake 10-15 minutes or until light golden brown.
Allow them to cool for a few minutes before removing the baking cookie cups or mini tart molds. Place them on a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely then store them in an airtight container for up to 5 days.