Comfort with Crostata

Crostata is to pie as a child is to an adult. One is smaller in stature, more delicate. One is fuller, taller, more pronounced. Deep-dish pies pack the filling. A crostata is more restrained. After very limited browsing on the Internet, I found crostata, a dessert with a dough, filling (i.e. fruit, jam), can be made in a tart pan. It can also be made without a pan, which is the approach I took for an apple-pear crostata. We had some leftover dough in the freezer (the other half of a recipe from Ina Garten’s ”Barefoot Contessa at Home”). So, the dough defrosted in the refrigerator. rolled it out on a floured wooden board. Roll the crust into a circle, or oblong. Do the best you can. The edges cracked quite a bit. The dough stuck to the board during the transfer to the rolling pin. It’s destination as a  parchment-lined baking sheet. After some slight patch work, the dough was ready for the filling. Fill it with the best-quality fruit, from, say, a farmers’ market. Two apples (Pink Lady, Gala) with two pears (Bosc and D’Anjou) went into this filling.

 

In a non-stick skillet, butter melted into a shallow bath for the fruit – peeled, cored and sliced one-quarter inch. Apples and pears warmed in a coating of melted butter, brown sugar, with kisses of ground cinnamon and lemon juice –  soft, luxurious sweetness in a breath. The fruit filled the pan too much, so the apples and pears steamed and released their liquids. 

 

Add a touch of Calvados (apple brandy) towards the end and cook five more minutes. I like a crostata, or really any fruit dessert, on the juicy, runny side. This one was a little dry for my taste. Just remove the fruit from the heat earlier if you like it this way. Let the fruit cool and then spoon onto the crust. Leave about a two-inch gap from the edge of the crust all the way around, so you can fold the crust inward, wrapping the edges like a dessert package. Then hide the fruit under streusel crumbles. The streusel recipe is found within an apricot pie recipe in Gourmet magazine.

Baking temperatures and times vary. I saw recipes for 375, 350, 450 and 400 for temperatures and anywhere from 20-25 minutes to 50-60 minutes. I went with 40 minutes, going from a recipe in Giada de Laurentiis’s book, “Giada’s Family Dinners.” My mom removed the crostata before time was up. I don’t remember how early, perhaps 40 seconds. A portion of crust turned black.

If you are able, turn on the oven light and peek inside to check. If the edge of the crust starts browning too much for your liking, cut a few pieces of aluminum foil and place over the crust. A few black streaks covered the parchment, a signal some juices escaped.

I would have liked softer fruit and a tart apple to go with the Pink Lady, perhaps a Granny Smith to provide an intriguing contrast. The sweet fruit, tender crust and crunchy bits of streusel with a scoop of vanilla ice cream leave room for a compliment or two.