Crostata - Jam tart

May 6, 20203 min read

Updated: May 23, 2020

Maybe one of the most popular Italian tarts?

I grow up having crostata for breakfast, dessert, afternoon break... and how to resist?

I want to teach you today how to bake the perfect crostata, how to get a consistent dough, the steps for a perfect sweet pastry that doesn't break and how to make the stripes right to spread the heat equally.

I will share the nutritional value of this tart at the end of the post, made by our friend the Dra. Gaia Poggi.

On this recipe, you will see how to make the sweet pastry, that it's a basic recipe you can use for other tarts or biscuits.

I made my crostata with some strawberry jam I had from my sister, but you can use any filling you like. It's very nice with Nutella or pastry cream too.

And if you want to know how to make epic pastry cream, stay tuned, I will post it soon.

Now, let's see how to get that beautiful Italian jam tart, the crostata.

Shopping list:

470gr flour

350gr jam

300gr butter

1 egg

1 yolk

170gr icing sugar

Step by step:

1 - First of all we need to prepare our sweet pastry. For that, we will mix the butter with the flour until we get a crumbling texture.

2- After we can add the icing sugar. PERSONALIZE: I did use it to get a finer texture, but you can use caster sugar as well.

3 - Then we can add the eggs.

4 - Once everything it's well mixed our dough will be ready. Now we can leave it in the fridge for at least 3h. TIP: Personally, if you have time, I prefer to leave it at least 12h.

5- After the waiting we are ready to work on our crostata. Roll out the dough until you get a high of more or less 0,50cm and place it on your tray.

6 - While you fill it up with your jam or cream, leave the extra dough in the fridge, as we will use it for the stripes.

7 - When you spread the filling, roll up the rest of the dough and cut straight stripes. TIP: The stripes are very important, even if people think they are not, or they are just decorative it's not true. The right stripes will help to spread equally the heat equially during the baking.

8 - To get them right, start from the middle. TIP: "Cut your crostata by half". After you have to do the right side the same way, cutting by half, and adding the last stipe next to the right edge. After you move to the left side, cut by the half, and add the last one next to the edge.

9- After we turn the crostata at 45º and we do the same on the upper level, starting from the middle, keeping it straight in a way to create a rhombus.

10 - And here you go! You will have a beautiful crostata ready! Preheat your oven at 170ºC.

11 - While you wait for the oven to be ready, TIP: you can do some biscuits with the leftover sweet pastry. Add some sugar or nuts on top. Be creative.

12- Bake the crostata for about 40 minutes and the biscuits for 14'.