Pasticciotto

An easier version of Southern Italy's 'custard tart'

I would honestly be shocked if I met someone who didn’t love pasticciotto aka Italy’s custard tart. It features a thick, creamy custard encapsulated in sweet shortcrust pastry, both on the top and bottom. It’s a substantial treat that makes a perfect breakfast (I mean milk and eggs basically make it a breakfast food!) and I absolutely loved eating these fresh from the bakery each morning we were in Puglia (yes, just about every morning for the 5 weeks we were in the region!) while they were still warm from the oven.

I love the single-serve pasticciotti but you need individual stainless steel oval-shaped moulds to make them. And while I personally have those, I know they’re not a common item to have around in most people’s kitchen. So it was perfect that about two weeks into my pasticciotto addiction, we went further south in Puglia to Salento and noticed lots of bakeries making large round ones. With my broken, mostly northern dialect, I asked about them at the bakery while ordering, and got the reply in very-foreign-to-my-ears Apulian dialect, which took me a hot minute and some internet searching to decipher! The gist of what the baker told me was that they large pasticciotti were the ‘same pasticciotti, but for when you’re tired’ aka easier to make!

All of that to say, if you want to make these in their individual forms, you can. The ingredients are the same, you will just need to reduce cooking time.

There’s nothing ‘hard’ about this recipe, but some time and finesse are needed. The custard can take a minute to pull together, and may need a slightly increased heat to do so. I usually just put an audiobook in, and stand at the stove whisking and slowly increasing heat until it’s thick. You want the custard to be scoopable but still soft ie collect a spoonful and tip it upside down without it falling off quickly. Isaac calls this ‘dollopable’ texture.

Securing the top pastry to the sides is quite annoying in my opinion. A bit finicky. BUT if you sit it on top and do nothing further - no attempting to secure the top pastry at all - it is absolutely fine. The custard underneath will bake onto it and secure it, it might just crumble a little more when cutting a slice but honestly, that’s no big deal in my book.

If you don’t have amarena cherries, you can add a little cherry jam to the custard, just know that it will settle and ‘slice’ through the custard. My in-laws absolutely loved this version and so did Isaac, being the amarena hater he is.

Using an egg yolk will give you a deeper colour on top of the pasticiotto but you’ve already got 4 whites with no real purpose so I like to just use what I’ve got in front of me for this recipe rather than cracking, and potentially wasting, another egg just for the sake of an-even-more-golden top.

I think pasticciotti are best when they are still warm, crumbly and gooey from the oven, but obviously looks messier when cutting. For these photos, I refrigerated the pasticiotto overnight after cooking and sliced it when it was fridge-cold which gives you a very clean line. If you do this, cut it up while cold then let it come to at least room temperature before serving because the flavours really sing when they are a little warmer.

As always, if you have any questions, let me know otherwise I hope you enjoyed this one and happy cooking!

Mel x