Made with a simple and easy pastry recipe, this crostata is perfect as dessert, for a sweet breakfast or with a tea in the afternoon

If you are looking for an Italian crostata recipe, I hope you’ll give this one a try. After months of trials, each one with a different pastry, I finally found the perfect recipe. This is aromatic, soft, crumbly, and it goes perfectly with orange, raspberry, peaches and blueberry jams.

If you make your own jam this recipe will be even better. I don’t like overly sweet desserts and jams and so I try to make it at home with fruits that are grown locally without the use of chemicals, and with less sugar.

Italian crostata recipe: a healthier version of a classic sweet

There is always a way to make an healthier version of everything, or at least I always try. In this case making this crostata recipe a bit healthier is not that complicated. If you use a low sugar jam half the job is done. Usually the pastry does not contain more than a teaspoon of sugar, so using a jam that’s low in sugar will surely help.

Another way to make an Italian crostata recipe healthier is the kind of flour you use: I prefer adding some almond flour to add some protein and minerals. The wheat flour I usually use is a semi refined flour, that still contains a bit of the husk and the wheat germ. Rich in fiber and minerals is made from an ancient grain from Sicily and it has an incredible scent.

Even though some people dread butter, I would’t use any other type of fat for a crostata. It’s not a huge quantity and if you use butter made with milk from pasture raised cows, the saturated fats are less and you’ll also find carotenoids and omega-3s in it. The taste is totally different and it’s worth trying! And a slice won’t contain more than 8gr.

Italian crostata recipe: variations

There are many recipes to make crostata, some makes it more fluffy, some more crumbly. Anyway the variations are endless, mainly based on your taste. You could try:

• multiple jams in the same
• nut butters or spreads
• ricotta and jam
• ricotta
• apples

Ingredients for a 24cm /10in round baking sheet

• 65gr of almond flour (you can make it by freezing the almonds for one hour and then grinding them with a food processor)
• 200gr  flour
• 20gr caster or muscovado sugar
• 100gr butter
• 1 tbsp malt, molasses, maple syrup or honey
• 2 tbsp of water
• 1 pinch of baking soda
• jam of choice around 150/200gr

Method
Using a food processor

Step 1 Preheat the oven at 180°C. Put all the ingredients, except the water into the food processor. Important! The butter should be cold.

Step 2
Turn the processor on for 30 sec. At this point the dough should be very crumbly and it should start to gather in big balls. Add the water and turn it on for other 30sec. Gather all the crumbles into the processor and put them on to the cutting board and knead it a little to make it firmer. Proceed to step 3.

By hand

Step 1
Preheat the oven at 180°C. In a large bowl mix all the dry ingredients (flours, sugar, baking soda). Add the cold butter, cut in little pieces, and rub it with the flour to get small crumbles. You can use a pastry cutter or cut the butter into very small pieces to make it easier.

Step 2
Add the water, then gather the dough into a ball. Do not over knead it or it will become chewy after cooking. Proceed to step 3.

Step 3
Flatten the dough with a rolling pin and then put it on the pan (about 27cm of diameter). Set aside a little part of the pastry to create strips or other decoration on the tart.

Step 4
Spread the jam and cover with the decoration. Bake for 35/40 minutes. Let it cool down completely before eating.