Made as a request I was very impressed with how good this Crostata turned out. Wonderfully sweet and flavoured.
I recently had a request from a viewer to make a recipe he had seen on David Lebovitz’s website for an easy jam tart. That recipe had been adapted from a recipe on Wednesday Chef website too. The tart is actually more commonly known in some places as a Crostata, since it has a particular type of pastry, which is leavened with baking powder and is quite crumbly.
The viewer asked if I could make this tart, as a demonstration so that they could then follow the instructions and make it too.
The recipe is actually very easy to make and the resultant tart is very tasty indeed. I used strawberry jam, but any jam you have would be great, as long as it is not too runny. Indeed if it is runny you could still use it, but with a few teaspoons of potato starch mixed into it to stabilise and thicken it during baking.
My tart turned out very well indeed. I was very pleased with both the look and the taste. I will soon be trying it again with raspberry or plum jam.
I should say that I adjusted some of the metric weights from David Lebovitz’s recipe since I didn’t think they were correct, and mine turned out to be fine.
If you like tarts you can find several on this blog, such as Cornflake Tart.
- 126g(9 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
- 100g(1/2 cup) caster, or granulated, sugar
- 1 medium egg(large in USA)
- 1 medium egg yolk(large in USA)
- 2 or 3 drops of almond extract
- 190g(1 1/4cups) plain flour(based on scooping packed flour into 250ml cup)
- 70g(1/2 cup) cornmeal
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 530g(1 3/4) cups of jam (of your own choice)
- 2 – 3 tbsp demerara sugar, or other raw sugar for sprinkling
Method:
- Mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
- In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the almond extract and the egg and additional yolk, then whisk to fully combine.
- Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing together until all is fully combined.
- Divide the mixture into two, one piece being 2/3 of the dough and the 2nd being the remaining 1/3 of the dough.
- Wrap the larger piece in plastic wrap and flatten to a disc.
- Wrap the smaller piece in plastic wrap, forming it into a log shape of about 2 inches in diameter.
- Chill both pieces of dough in the fridge for at least an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/375 F.
- Place the larger piece of dough into a 9 inch/23cm fluted flan tin, with a loose bottom,(or a springform pan) and use your hands to flatten and level across the base and up the sides(depending on the depth of the pan you may not need to push all the way up the side, just enough to hold the jam in).
- When the dough is level put the jam in and spread across the base.
- Cut the log of dough into thin discs and place on the top of the jam( I placed them round the edge, overlapping). Sprinkle remaining dough in little blobs onto the centre of the tart if you haven’t covered it completely with discs.
- Sprinkle the demerara sugar all over the top of the dough.
- Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until the pastry is a lovely golden brown colour.
- Remove from the oven and cool completely before taking out of the pan and serving ( I put mine in the fridge to cool it and allow the jam to firm up).