Italian Nutella Tart | Crostata alla Nutella

Sep 29

11 min read

Crostata alla Nutella (Italian Nutella Tart)

This is the crostata that Italian children grow up asking for: a short pastry shell, a thick layer of hazelnut and cocoa spread, and a lattice laid over the top. There is almost nothing to it, which is exactly why it goes wrong so easily.

Everything depends on the pastry, and specifically on which of the two classic methods you use to make it. That choice, not the filling, decides whether the slice stands up on the plate or slumps.

Yield: one 9 inch tart, 10 slices. Prep: 30 minutes. Chill: 2 hours. Bake: 35 minutes. Cool: 2 hours. Total: about 5 hours. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: dolce. Region: Piedmont for the filling, all of Italy for the tart.

The Story

The crostata is the oldest and most domestic of Italian sweets. Pasta frolla, the short sweet pastry it is built on, appears in Italian cookery manuscripts from the sixteenth century onward, and by the nineteenth century Pellegrino Artusi was recording several versions of it with different proportions of butter, sugar and egg. The tart that came out of it was a way of using what the pantry already held: a jar of fruit preserve from the summer, a little flour, a little butter, and pastry scraps cut into strips and crossed over the top so that nothing was wasted. Every Italian region has its own version, and almost every Italian family has a tin that has baked nothing else.

The filling arrived much later, and it came from Piedmont. In 1806 the continental blockade cut Turin off from its supply of cacao, and the confectioners of the city stretched what little they had with the one local product they had in abundance: the round hazelnuts of the Langhe hills, south of Alba. The result was gianduia, a paste of toasted hazelnut, sugar and a modest amount of cocoa, named after a Turinese carnival character and sold in the wrapped ingot the Piedmontese call giandujot.

After the second world war a confectioner in Alba took that same economy of means further. Cocoa was again scarce and expensive, hazelnuts were not, and he worked the paste into something soft enough to spread on bread rather than cut with a knife. Italian households adopted it within a generation, and the crostata was the first thing it went into. The pastry, the lattice and the tin stayed exactly as they had always been. Only the jar changed, and by the 1970s the hazelnut version had quietly become as ordinary a Sunday tart as the apricot one it replaced.

Ingredients

For the pasta frolla

All purpose flour, 2 1/2 cups (300 g)
Cold unsalted butter, cut in cubes, 5 1/2 oz (160 g)
Granulated sugar, 2/3 cup (130 g)
Egg yolks, large, 3
Whole egg, large, 1
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1 lemon
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
Baking powder, 1/2 tsp (2 g)

For the filling

Hazelnut and cocoa spread, 1 1/2 cups (450 g)
Mascarpone, at room temperature, 3 oz (85 g)
Toasted skinned hazelnuts, chopped, 2 oz (55 g)
Unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tbsp (6 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch

For finishing

Egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp (5 ml) whole milk, for the lattice
Toasted skinned hazelnuts, halved, 10
Confectioners sugar, for dusting, 1 tsp (3 g)

Preparation

Make the pasta frolla by the sanding method

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder onto a cool work surface. Add the cold cubed butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips, lifting and dropping the mixture, until it looks like coarse damp sand with a few flakes of butter still visible. Work fast and keep your hands light: the aim is to coat every grain of flour in fat before any liquid touches it. Only then add the sugar, the lemon zest, the yolks and the whole egg. Bring the dough together with a scraper in as few movements as possible. It should look marbled and matte, and it should crack rather than stretch when you press it.

Chill the dough hard, in two pieces

Divide the dough two thirds to one third. Flatten each piece into a disc about 1 inch thick, wrap them and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. Cold butter is what keeps the fat in separate pockets instead of letting it melt into the flour, and a flattened disc chills through in a fraction of the time a ball takes. The smaller piece is for the lattice and is the one that most needs to be properly cold, because thin strips warm up in seconds under your hands.

Line the tin and keep the base thick

Roll the larger disc between two sheets of parchment to a thickness of about 1/6 inch (4 mm), which is thicker than a fruit crostata needs. Line a 9 inch tart tin with a removable base, pressing the pastry into the corner without stretching it, and trim the rim flush. Prick the base lightly with a fork, then refrigerate the lined tin for 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) with a rack in the lower third.

Loosen the filling with mascarpone

Beat the hazelnut and cocoa spread with the mascarpone, the cocoa powder and the pinch of salt until it is smooth and just spreadable. Fold in the chopped hazelnuts. The mascarpone does two jobs: it cuts a filling that is otherwise very sweet, and it holds the spread in place so that it sets rather than running when it is warm. Do not warm the mixture to make it easier to spread. A filling that goes in warm will soak into cold pastry before the oven can set the wall.

Fill the shell and lay the lattice

Spread the filling into the cold shell in an even layer, stopping about 1/3 inch (8 mm) below the rim. Roll the second disc and cut strips about 3/4 inch (2 cm) wide with a fluted wheel. Lay half of them across the tart, then the rest at an angle over the first, pressing the ends firmly onto the rim and trimming them. Brush the lattice and the rim with the yolk and milk wash, and set a halved hazelnut in some of the open squares.

Bake low and cool completely

Bake for 33 to 38 minutes, until the lattice is a deep golden brown and the filling has stopped wobbling when you nudge the tin. The low rack is deliberate: it drives heat into the base so the wall sets early, while the lattice colours from above. If the rim runs ahead of the rest, cover it with a ring of foil for the last 10 minutes. Cool the tart in its tin on a rack for 2 hours before you unmould it, and cut it only when it is fully at room temperature.

Plating

Cut the tart with a long thin blade warmed under hot water and wiped dry between slices. A serrated knife tears the lattice and drags the filling; a warm smooth blade parts the pastry cleanly and leaves the cut face glossy. Slice into ten wedges rather than eight, because the filling is rich and a smaller wedge is the one people finish.

Serve it at room temperature on a flat plate, never a bowl, so the lattice stays the first thing anyone sees. Dust the plate rather than the tart, with the smallest amount of confectioners sugar through a fine mesh sieve, and keep the sugar off the shine of the filling. A spoonful of barely sweetened whipped cream on the side is welcome; anything hot next to it is not, because it softens the wall of the slice within a minute.

Professional Technique

There are two accepted ways to make pasta frolla and they produce two different desserts from the same list of ingredients. The first is the sanding method, metodo sabbiato, and it is the one used here: cold butter is rubbed into the flour until the flour is completely coated in fat, and the eggs and sugar arrive only afterwards. Because each grain of starch is already sealed in butter, very little water reaches the proteins in the flour and almost no gluten develops. The pastry that comes out is friable and short, closer to sand than to biscuit, and it breaks under a fork instead of bending.

The second is the creaming method, metodo montato, where soft butter is beaten with the sugar until pale and aerated and the flour goes in at the end. That beating whips air into the fat, the sugar dissolves into it, and the flour hydrates properly, so a little gluten does form. The result is more compact and distinctly biscuity, it takes a print cleanly, and it is far more forgiving to roll. For filled biscuits it is the better choice.

Under a heavy filling, the sanded pastry is the one that holds. Its fat coated flour hydrates very little, so the baked wall is a rigid structure of short fragments that stays firm against a dense weight sitting on it for hours. The creamed version carries air cells and a slight gluten network, and both work against you here: the aerated crumb compresses under the load, and the closer texture traps the steam the filling gives off during baking instead of letting it escape. The difference is visible in the raw dough. Sanded frolla is matte, marbled, flecked with butter and it cracks at the edges when you press it flat. Creamed frolla is pale, smooth and uniform, it holds a fingerprint, and it comes together into one elastic ball. If your dough looks like a ball, you have made the other tart.

Texture and Moisture Control

Three textures have to arrive together: a crisp short wall, a filling set to the firmness of cold ganache, and a lattice that snaps. The wall is the one at risk, and the moisture that threatens it comes from two directions. From below, a tin that sits too high in the oven never gets enough bottom heat, and the pastry sets slowly while the filling above it is already releasing steam. From the filling itself, sugar draws water out of the spread as it warms and that water has nowhere to go but into the pastry it touches.

Temperature discipline handles both. The shell goes into the oven cold, straight from the refrigerator, so the butter in it is solid and the structure sets before anything can migrate. The filling goes in cool and thick rather than warm and fluid. The rack sits in the lower third. Get those three right and the base is set within the first twelve minutes, which is well before the filling reaches the temperature at which it starts to give up liquid.

The cooling is not optional either. A warm tart has a filling that is still fluid and a pastry that is still flexible, and cutting it at that point crushes both. Two hours at room temperature lets the cocoa butter and the hazelnut fat in the filling recrystallise into a sliceable solid, and lets the residual steam leave the pastry rather than condense in it.

Professional Mise en Place

This is a dessert with one short window of real handling, the lattice, and everything else is either waiting or baking. Set the order up properly and the tart is assembled in ten minutes.

Equipment and tools

9 inch tart tin with a removable base
Bench scraper, fluted pastry wheel, rolling pin, two sheets of parchment
Fine mesh sieve for the flour and for the final dusting
Cooling rack and a long thin slicing knife

Prepared ahead

Pasta frolla, in two wrapped discs, up to 2 days refrigerated or 1 month frozen
Hazelnuts toasted, skinned and chopped, up to 1 week in a sealed jar
Filling mixed with the mascarpone, up to 1 day refrigerated, brought back to cool room temperature
Tin lined with pastry and refrigerated, up to 12 hours, covered

Service setup

Oven at 350°F (175°C), rack in the lower third, foil ring cut and ready
Egg wash beaten and a soft brush beside it
Slicing knife, a jug of hot water and a clean cloth
Flat plates at room temperature and the sieve loaded with confectioners sugar

Chef Tips

Work the frolla on the coolest surface you have and stop the moment it comes together. Marble is ideal and a steel bench is fine. If the butter starts to smear rather than flake, put everything back in the refrigerator for ten minutes.

Toast and skin the hazelnuts yourself. Ten minutes at 325°F (165°C), then rub them in a cloth while still warm, and the difference against packaged nuts is not subtle: the skins are what make hazelnuts taste bitter, and the toasting is what makes them taste of anything at all.

Cut the lattice strips wider than looks right. Strips of 3/4 inch (2 cm) hold their shape and brown evenly, while narrow ones stretch as you lift them and either tear or shrink back into thin lines that disappear into the filling.

Save every scrap of pastry, press it together without kneading, and bake it flat for 12 minutes. Those offcuts are the cook's share, and they tell you exactly how the pastry in the tart will taste and break before anyone cuts it.

Common Mistakes

Creaming the butter and sugar together. That is the other method, and under this filling it gives you a soft compact base that compresses under the weight. Rub cold butter into the flour first and add the sugar and eggs afterwards.

Rolling the base too thin. A fruit crostata can take 1/8 inch pastry. This one cannot, because the filling is far heavier. Stay at about 1/6 inch (4 mm) on the base and accept that it looks generous.

Spreading a warmed filling. Warm spread is easier to level and it soaks straight into the raw pastry, which is the single most common cause of a soggy base. Loosen it with mascarpone instead of heat.

Cutting the tart while it is warm. The filling is still fluid and the pastry still flexible, so the wedge collapses and the cut face smears. Give it two full hours at room temperature.

Filling the shell right to the rim. The filling expands slightly in the oven and will run over the edge and weld the pastry to the tin. Stop about 1/3 inch (8 mm) short.

Wine Pairing

Vin Santo del Chianti Classico DOC: The most complete match on the list. Dried in the loft and aged oxidatively in small barrels, it carries walnut, dried fig and caramel notes that run straight alongside the toasted hazelnut instead of competing with it. Its acidity is high for a sweet wine, which is precisely what lifts the fat of the butter and the cocoa off the palate between bites.

Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG: A sweet red built from dried Corvina, and the classic Italian answer to cocoa. Its sour cherry and dried plum fruit meets the bitterness of the cocoa head on, and the residual sugar sits slightly above that of the filling, which keeps the wine from tasting hollow. The tannin is soft and ripe, enough to give grip without drying the mouth.

Moscato di Scanzo DOCG: A rare sweet red passito from the hills near Bergamo, aromatic rather than heavy. Rose, dried strawberry and a clear note of sweet spice cut across the density of the hazelnut filling and give the pairing a lift that a richer wine cannot. Serve it cool, around 57°F (14°C), in a small glass alongside a narrow wedge.

Brachetto d'Acqui DOCG: The Piedmontese bottle, from the same hills as the hazelnuts, and the easiest of the four. Lightly sparkling, low in alcohol and openly grapey, it works by contrast: the bubble scrubs the palate clean of cocoa butter and the modest sweetness keeps the tart from tasting sugary. Serve it properly cold, at about 46°F (8°C).

Storage & Reheating

This tart keeps better than almost any other dessert in the repertoire, because there is no cream and no fresh fruit in it. Covered with a cloth or loosely wrapped, at cool room temperature, it holds for 4 days and is arguably better on the second day than on the first, once the pastry and the filling have equalised. Do not refrigerate it: the cold makes the filling hard and waxy and pulls moisture into the pastry.

It freezes well whole or in slices, wrapped first in parchment and then in foil, for up to 2 months. Thaw it at room temperature for 4 hours, still wrapped, so that condensation forms on the wrapping rather than on the lattice. There is nothing to reheat, but if the pastry has gone soft, 8 minutes at 300°F (150°C) and a full cooling afterwards will bring the snap back.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 10 slices:

Calories: 520 kcal
Total Fat: 30 g
Saturated Fat: 13 g
Trans Fat: 0.2 g
Unsaturated Fat: 16 g
Cholesterol: 95 mg
Sodium: 95 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 55 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 34 g
Added Sugars: 32 g
Protein: 7 g
Lactose: 1.2 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin E, manganese, copper, magnesium, iron, phosphorus