PISTACHIO AND MASCARPONE CROSTATA
Today I bring you a typical Italian cake: the crostata, filled with pistachio cream and mascarpone. A delicious combination of Italian flavors.
The crostata is a sweet cake that is prepared with what in Italy is called pasta frolla which gives it a crunchy texture very similar to shortcrust pastry.
We can find many types of crostatas. Among the most typical are the crostata alla marmellata with seasonal jam filling, Nutella or pistachio.
PISTACHIO AND MASCARPONE FILLING
With the excuse to try the green pistachio di bronte DOP cream I decided to prepare this crostata recipe. For this I combined the pistachio crostata recipe and the mascarpone crostata recipe and I loved the result, creamy like a thin cheesecake with pistachio on it. I promise the crunchy pasta frolla base with the crunchy pistachio and creamy mascarpone combination is gorgeous!
To prepare the pasta frolla or crostata dough I recommend good quality butter at room temperature. First mix the butter and sugar, then the eggs one by one at room temperature and finally the rest of the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, sugar, salt, lemon zest and vanilla).
Once we have prepared the dough for our crostata, we must divide it into two portions, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for two or three hours in the refrigerator before we can shape it.
CHILLING BEFORE ROLL
If we decide to leave the dough overnight in the refrigerator, we will need to let it stand for about 15 minutes at room temperature before shaping it.
Once we have chilled our crostata dough we stretch it on a floured surface with the help of a rolling pin and line our mold.
We stretch the second of our dough and, with the help of a pizza cutter (or a knife), we cut some strips to decorate our crostata.
When shaping the crostata dough, if you notice that it begins to soften too much, do not hesitate to chill the dough again into the fridge for 30 minutes in the refrigerator to shape it.
STRAIGHT TO THE OVEN
As you can see in my recipe the decoration does not need to be very professional, but who knows, maybe with time we will get that crostata with perfectly geometric decorations like just out of the oven of a Disney movie.
Once we have placed our crostata in a previously greased mold, it is not necessary to bake the crust first; we will bake our crostata directly with the filling.
To prevent the top from burning we can cover our crostata with aluminum foil for the first 20 minutes of baking, or we can place the crostata on the oven rack, and on top of it the baking sheet, to prevent the top from browning too much.
To bake our crostata we can use a removable mold that facilitates removing the cake from the mold. Mine is from a Dutch store called HEMA, but here are some similar ones. If you don’t have a springform pan, you can always line it with baking paper to make it easier to take our cake about of the mold.
Pistachio and Mascarpone Crostata
Equipment
- 1 Electric wisk Or Kitchen Aid, or Thermomix
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Fridge
- 1 Oven
Ingredients
Dough
- 2+1/2 cup Pastry flour
- 1/2+1/4 cup Unsalted butter
- 1 unit Egg
- 2 units Egg yolks
- 1/2 cup White sugar
- 1 tbsp White sugar
- 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 1/4 tsp Vanilla
- 1 pinch Salt
- Lemon zest Optional
Filling
- 1 cup Pistachio cream
- 2 cup Mascarpone
- 1/4 cup White sugar
- 1/4 tsp Vanilla
Instructions
- We start by mixing the unsalted butter at room temperature with the sugar. We can use an electric whisk, the paddle of our Kitchen Aid or Thermomix. Mix the butter and sugar well for 3-4 minutes, until you get a creamy texture and the butter has an almost white color.
- Add the egg at room temperature and mix.
- Then add the egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well until they are integrated into the dough.
- In another bowl we mix our dry ingredients: sugar, yeast, sifted flour, salt, vanilla and lemon zest.
- Add the dry ingredients to the egg and butter mixture until they are perfectly integrated.
- Form a ball with the crostata dough and divide it into two portions, cover with cling film and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
- Mix the mascarpone with the sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla in a bowl and set aside.
- Grease a baking pan with degreasing spray and flour, or line it with baking paper.
- Preheat the oven to 356 º Fahrenheit.
- Roll the crostata dough on a floured surface with a rolling pin.
- Place half of the stretched dough on the mold and prick with a fork.
- Then place the pistachio cream on top of the crostata dough with the help of a teaspoon.
- Chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
- Place the mascarpone, sugar and vanilla mixture on top of the pistachio cream.
- Roll the crostata dough we have reserved and cut into strips to decorate our crostata.
- Decorate the crostata with the crostata dough.
- Bake at 356º F for 35-45 minutes with heat up and down.
- To prevent the surface of the crostata from over-browning, we can cover our pistachio and mascarpone crostata with aluminum foil for the first 20 minutes, or we can place the baking tray on top, so that the crostata, which we will have placed in the middle of the oven, will be less brown
- Let cool for at least 2 hours and enjoy!
