What is a crostata you ask? It's nothing fancy, just a pie without a pan and it's delicious! I make these when I have extra fruit around or vegetables with a little change to a couple of ingredients in the dough. You can make several batches of the dough and freeze them. This makes it easy to whip one up any time you want. I'll add a picture below of a little variation using a jar rather than the traditional way.
The Crust
Ingredients
Directions
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup granulated or superfine sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
- 1/4 pound lard, diced(1 stick of butter will do if you like)
- 8 tablespoons ice water
Directions
- Place flour, sugar and salt in a food processor or bowl and mix a bit to combine.
- Add butter and lard a bit at a time and pulse to mix until it becomes pea size in the mix.
- Add ice water a bit at a time until it forms a dough.
- Cut in half, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for about 2 hours. Freeze what you don't want to use for the next time.
The Filling
Ingredients
- 5 peaches
- 1/2 cup of cherries
- 1/3 cup of light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup of flour
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- A dash of nutmeg
- Heat over to 400 degrees.
- Peel and slice peaches. Quick way to peel these is to place in boiling water to 30 seconds, dip in ice water and rub the skin of with a paper towel. Works like a charm!
- Pit cherries and leave in half slices.
- Place fruit in a large bowl and mix all other filling ingredients in.
- Roll our a dough half in a well floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick.
- Place rolled dough on a parchment or nonstick surface on a baking sheet.
- Fill with a layer of fruit filling leave a 2 inch border to fold up around the fruit.
- Fold the remaining dough border up around the fruit.
- Repeat with the second half of dough.
- Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Do not over bake! Trust me, when the crust is brown, the fruit is softened.
- Let cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a plate.