.….or Crostata di Ricotta e Marasche al Cardamomo to give it its proper name. If you don’t fancy cherry then any jam will do , I have used blueberry for the lastest one I made for this.
Ingredients
250g plain flour
140g butter, cut into pieces
100g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tbsp water
Morello (or any sour cherry) jam
300g ricotta (drain off any surface liquid)
50g sugar
Method:
1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the sugar, the butter pieces, and the cardamom.
2. Work all the ingredients together with your fingers until they take the consistency of crumbs.
3. Break the egg in half and keep tipping the yolk from one side to another over a bowl until the white has been separated, add the yolk to the bowl and then do the same again.
4. Mix the yolks into the crumb mixture thoroughly with your fingers until the mixture is clumping together.
5. Try to pick up all the clumps into one big lump, if it isn’t doing this particularly well, or it does go together but feels a little crumbly then pull it to pieces into the bowl again and add the tablespoon of water. This should be enough to make the difference and the pastry dough should now form together into a nice smooth ball.
6. Put this ball into a food bag, seal this and put it into the fridge to rest for between 1 and 2 hours.
7. After the dough has rested take it out of the bag. Sprinkle some flour onto the work surface and then using a floured rolling pin roll out the pastry and then lay out into a cake/tart tin. The rolling pin is floured, as in rub flour around the rolling pin otherwise it will stick to the rolling pin.
8. As a side note, if you get the pastry out of the bag and it feels a little crumbly when you try to roll it out, crumble it out into the bowl again, wet your hands and then knead the pastry as if it was pizza dough, this will put enough moisture into the pastry so that it doesn’t fall apart again.
9. I use some non-stick baking paper under the pastry in the tin, if you don’t have this then you can always rub butter around the inside of the tin.
10. Mix the Ricotta cheese and the 50g of sugar together to make the topping.
11. With a sharp knife trim the edges of the pastry to the edge of the pan if it is a shallow tart pan (if it is a deeper cake tin, then use judgement to cut it about 1” high). Re-roll the scraps and then cut into thin strips to decorate the top of the cake in a lattice top.
12. Spread out the jam evenly inside the pastry case you have made, I generally find this uses about ¾ of the jar, obviously depending on the size of the jar.
13. On top of the jam, spread out the ricotta mixture that you made.
14. Place on top of the ricotta the sliced strips of pastry that you cut up from the scraps, start in the middle and place the strips down about 1” apart, then once you have all the strips one way, do the other way. Make sure to push the ends into the edge of the pastry bottom. If it starts to look uneven you can always trim it down more.
15. Take the egg whites that are left in a bowl, mix them thoroughly with a fork and then use a brush to “paint” the egg white mixture over the top of the cake, this will help it brown and look really nice.
16. Bake this at about 180°C until the top is golden brown, this takes between 25 and 30 minutes, so just make sure to keep an eye on it.
17. Once it is done, take it out and place on a cooling rack.
18. Enjoy.
