Italian Custard Tart with Fresh Strawberries | Crostata alla Crema Pasticcera e Fragole Fresche

Sep 29

11 min read

Crostata alla Crema Pasticcera e Fragole Fresche (Italian Custard Tart with Fresh Strawberries)

This is the tart that fills the window of every Italian pasticceria from April to June: a crisp shortcrust shell, a thick layer of vanilla pastry cream, and fresh strawberries laid on raw. Nothing about the fruit is cooked, reduced or sweetened. The dessert is assembled cold, in the last hours before it is eaten, and it lives or dies on the thin coat of glaze brushed over the berries at the very end.

Yield: one 9 inch tart, 8 servings. Prep: 40 minutes. Chilling: 2 hours for the dough, 3 hours for the cream. Baking: 30 minutes. Assembly: 20 minutes. Total: about 6 hours, most of it unattended. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: dolce. Region: central and northern Italy, pasticceria tradition.

The Story

The crostata is the oldest surviving shape in Italian dessert baking, and for most of its life it had nothing to do with fresh fruit. Pellegrino Artusi wrote down several versions of pasta frolla in 1891, and every filling he suggested was a preserve: quince, apple, plum, cherry conserve. That was not a matter of taste but of arithmetic. A wood oven and a bowl of ripe fruit make a poor pairing, since the fruit releases water, the water finds the pastry, and an hour of work becomes a wet disc. Jam had already given up its water in the copper pan, so jam was what went into a crostata in a farmhouse.

The fruit tart is a town dessert, and a fairly recent one. It arrived with crema pasticcera, which Italian pastry shops borrowed from French patisserie during the nineteenth century and made their own with lemon zest and a heavier hand on the vanilla, and it could only spread once reliable refrigeration reached the back of the shop. An egg custard under raw berries cannot stand on a counter in the warm. Once the cold room existed, the torta alla frutta became the standard Italian celebration tart, the one bought whole for a birthday and sold by the wedge on Sunday morning.

The strawberry has its own Italian geography, and it is worth buying by name. The Fragola di Nemi grows in the volcanic soil of the Alban hills south of Rome and is celebrated there every June with a festival that has run since 1922. The Fragola di Terracina ripens early along the Lazio coast, and the Fragola di Marostica in Veneto carries an IGP that dates to 2014. All of them are small, intensely perfumed and structurally fragile, picked over a few short weeks. That fragility is the whole reason this recipe keeps them out of the oven and puts them on last.

Ingredients

For the pasta frolla

All purpose flour, 2 cups (250 g)
Cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes, 9 tbsp (125 g)
Powdered sugar, 2/3 cup (80 g)
Whole egg, large, 1
Egg yolk, large, 1
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1 lemon
Vanilla extract, 1/2 tsp (2.5 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)

For the pastry cream

Whole milk, 2 cups (480 ml)
Vanilla bean, split lengthwise, 1
Egg yolks, large, 5
Granulated sugar, 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp (125 g)
Cornstarch, 1/4 cup (30 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch
Cold unsalted butter, 1 1/2 tbsp (20 g)

For the strawberries and the glaze

Ripe strawberries, medium and even in size, 1 1/2 lb (680 g)
Neutral tart glaze or clear apricot glaze, 5 oz (140 g)
Water, 1 to 2 tbsp (15 to 30 ml)

For finishing

Powdered sugar, a light dusting for the pastry rim only
Toasted sliced almonds, 2 tbsp (15 g), optional, for the rim

Preparation

Step 1

Make the pasta frolla. Put the flour, powdered sugar and salt in a wide bowl and rub the cold butter cubes into them with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse sand. Work quickly and keep everything cold, because melting butter builds gluten instead of coating the flour. Add the egg, the yolk, the lemon zest and the vanilla, gather the dough with as few movements as you can, flatten it into a thick disc, wrap it and refrigerate 2 hours.

Step 2

Roll and line the ring. Roll the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1/8 inch (3 mm), turning it a quarter turn between passes so it stays round. Line a 9 inch (23 cm) tart ring, easing the dough into the base angle rather than stretching it across. Trim the top edge flush with a knife, prick the base all over with a fork, then freeze the lined shell 20 minutes.

Step 3

Blind bake the shell completely. Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line the frozen shell with parchment, fill it with baking beans and bake for 20 minutes, then lift out the beans and paper and give it another 8 to 12 minutes until it is an even biscuit gold into the centre of the base. This is the only heat the tart will ever see, so an underbaked shell stays soft forever. Cool it completely on a rack.

Step 4

Cook the pastry cream. Bring the milk to a bare simmer with the split vanilla bean and its scraped seeds, then leave it to infuse off the heat for 10 minutes. Whisk the yolks with the sugar, the cornstarch and the salt until pale. Pour a third of the hot milk over them while whisking, then return everything to the pan and cook over medium heat, whisking into the corners without stopping, until the cream thickens suddenly and the first slow bubbles break the surface.

Step 5

Finish and chill the cream. Once it has thickened, keep it moving over the heat for a further 60 to 90 seconds. The starch needs that time at a bare boil to gelatinize fully and lose the chalky taste of raw cornstarch, and it is what stops the cream weeping later. Off the heat beat in the cold butter, pour the cream in a thin layer onto a cold tray, press film flat onto the surface so no skin forms, and refrigerate at least 3 hours.

Step 6

Prepare the strawberries. Rinse them briefly in cold water with the green tops still attached, so water cannot enter through the hull, and lay them on a clean towel to dry completely. Hull them only once dry, then halve the larger ones lengthwise and leave the small ones whole. Do not sugar them, do not add liqueur and do not let them sit once cut. A cut strawberry starts losing juice within minutes, and every drop ends up in the cream.

Step 7

Fill, arrange and glaze. Beat the cold cream smooth with a spatula and spread it into the shell in an even layer that stops just below the rim. Arrange the strawberries cut side down in concentric rings, starting at the outer edge and working in, overlapping them slightly so no cream shows. Warm the glaze with a little water until it is just fluid and no hotter than about 105°F (40°C), then brush it over the fruit in one light pass. Refrigerate and serve within 3 hours.

Plating

Take the tart out of the refrigerator 15 minutes before it is cut, no longer. Straight from the cold the cream is stiff and mute and the strawberry perfume is locked away; left out for an hour the cream slackens and the glaze goes tacky. Slide the ring off while the tart is still cold and firm, then let it stand on the board.

Cut with a thin knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry between every slice, in one decisive downward movement rather than a sawing one, so the berries are cut through instead of dragged out of place. Dust powdered sugar over the pastry rim only, with a strip of paper laid across the fruit to keep the sugar off the glaze, where it would dissolve into blotches. Almonds, if you use them, go on the rim. Serve on cold plates, nothing poured over.

Professional Technique

The governing idea of this tart is that the fruit never meets the oven. The shell is baked empty and cooled, the cream is cooked separately and chilled hard, and the strawberries are set down raw at the end. It is a dessert that is assembled, not baked, and that changes where the difficulty sits. There is no moment of heat in which mistakes get corrected, so each of the three parts must be right on its own. A pale shell will not darken later, and a loose cream will not set later.

What holds it together is the glaze, and its temperature is the whole technique. A raw strawberry is mostly water held behind a very thin skin, and once it is halved that skin is open. Brushed with glaze at the right temperature it gains a continuous film perhaps a fraction of a millimetre thick, which slows evaporation, keeps the cut faces glossy, and shuts out the air that would otherwise turn the surface dull and brownish within the hour. Bring the same glaze to a real heat and it does the opposite: it melts the outer cell layer of the fruit, the strawberry slumps and releases juice under the film, and you get a wet cloudy layer rather than a lacquer.

That film buys hours, not days, which is why the tart is assembled two to three hours before service and no earlier. The glaze holds water inside the fruit; it does nothing about water passing the other way, from the cream into the pastry underneath. The longer the tart stands, the further that front travels, and a shell that was crisp when it was filled is quietly soft by the middle of the afternoon.

Texture and Moisture Control

Three textures have to arrive together: the shell brittle, the cream firm but spoonable, the fruit taut. The shell is set by the blind bake and by the fat coating the flour, which is why the butter goes in cold and the dough is handled as little as possible. Overworked frolla turns elastic in the bowl, shrinks down the sides of the ring in the oven and bakes tough rather than sandy.

The cream is a starch gel, and its firmness is decided in those last 90 seconds on the heat rather than in the refrigerator. Pulled off the moment it thickens, the starch granules are only partly swollen, and the cream looks right while it is hot but slumps and weeps once it is cold. Held at a bare boil for a minute and a half it sets clean, holds the weight of the fruit and can be beaten smooth again without breaking.

The fruit is the one part you cannot cook into submission. Choose berries that are ripe but firm, red through to the core, and dry them properly before hulling, because surface water dilutes the glaze and stops it gripping. Keep the halves cut side down: any juice that escapes then stays where it cannot run across the surface.

Professional Mise en Place

Everything except the fruit and the glaze can be done the day before. Plan the assembly around the hour the tart will be cut and work backwards from it.

Equipment and tools

9 inch (23 cm) tart ring or fluted tart tin with a removable base
Parchment and baking beans for the blind bake
Heavy saucepan and a rigid whisk for the cream
Flat tray for chilling the cream, plus film to press on the surface
Soft pastry brush, offset spatula, thin slicing knife

Prepared ahead

Pasta frolla, up to 2 days refrigerated or 1 month frozen
Blind baked shell, baked the day before and kept in a dry sealed box at room temperature
Pastry cream, cooked the day before, chilled flat and covered
Strawberries bought the same day, kept whole and unwashed in the refrigerator

Service setup

Berries washed, dried and hulled, cut only when the cream is already in the shell
Glaze warming gently with a thermometer in it, held just fluid
Tart assembled 2 to 3 hours before service and kept refrigerated uncovered
Hot water and a cloth ready at the board for cutting

Chef Tips

Buy the strawberries by smell rather than by size. A berry you can smell across the counter is ripe through, while a large pale one looks right on the tart and tastes of nothing under the glaze. Save the best for the outer ring, where every slice shows them.

Weigh the cornstarch. A spooned quarter cup can be out by 8 g either way, and that is the difference between a cream that holds a clean edge and one that pools under the fruit.

Use a thermometer on the glaze, not your finger. Just fluid and slightly warm covers a wide range, and the top of it is already enough to soften a cut strawberry. If the glaze thickens as you work, add a few drops of water rather than more heat.

Bake the shell the day before if the kitchen is warm. Rested overnight in a sealed box it is drier and crisper than one baked that morning, and you are left with only cream and fruit to think about.

Common Mistakes

Underbaking the shell. The fruit tart gets no second visit to the oven, so a shell that comes out blond stays soft under the cream for the rest of its life. Bake it to an even biscuit gold right into the centre of the base.

Brushing hot glaze over the berries. Heat melts the outer cells of a cut strawberry, the fruit slumps and bleeds under the film, and the lacquer turns cloudy. Keep the glaze just fluid and no warmer than about 105°F (40°C).

Taking the cream off the heat too soon. A cream pulled the instant it thickens has not gelatinized fully, and it looks correct hot but weeps once cold. Give it a full 60 to 90 seconds at a bare boil, whisking hard.

Washing the strawberries after hulling them. Water enters the open hull, sits inside the berry and comes out later into the cream. Rinse them with the tops on, dry them, then hull.

Building the tart in the morning for the evening. Eight hours in the refrigerator softens the pastry from the cream side and dulls the fruit however good the glaze is. Assemble two to three hours before it is cut.

Wine Pairing

Moscato d'Asti DOCG: The reference match and the easiest to get right. Its low alcohol and gentle frizzante lift the weight of the pastry cream instead of piling sweetness on it, while the peach and elderflower aromatics of the Moscato Bianco grape sit alongside fresh strawberry rather than over it. Its residual sugar also stays below that of the tart, so the fruit remains the sweetest thing on the table.

Brachetto d'Acqui DOCG: The one red wine that genuinely works here, and it works because of aroma rather than structure. Brachetto smells of wild strawberry and rose, so it doubles the fruit on the plate, and its tannin is so slight that it never clashes with the egg yolk fat in the cream. Serve it cold, around 46°F (8°C), in small glasses.

Recioto di Soave DOCG: For anyone who finds Moscato too obvious. Dried Garganega grapes give a denser sweet wine with real acidity behind the sugar, plus almond and candied citrus peel that follow the vanilla and the lemon zest. That acidity is what matters: it cuts the richness of five yolks and keeps the last bite as clean as the first.

Malvasia delle Lipari DOC: The choice for a tart made with a heavy hand on the vanilla, where the cream is the point and the berries are the decoration. Aged on the Aeolian islands, it brings dried apricot, orange blossom and a saline finish that keeps a sweet wine from turning syrupy. It is the fullest wine here, so pour small measures.

Storage & Reheating

Nothing is reheated here, and the assembled tart does not keep. Cut what you need and accept that the rest is a next day dessert of a lesser kind: refrigerated uncovered on a plate it is still pleasant for about 24 hours, with a soft shell and fruit that has lost its gloss. Never cover it with film, which traps moisture against the glaze, and never freeze it, since the cream separates and the berries collapse into water on thawing.

Stored apart, the parts are generous. Raw pasta frolla keeps 2 days refrigerated and a month frozen. The blind baked shell keeps 2 days in a sealed box at room temperature and must stay out of the refrigerator, where it absorbs moisture from the air. Pastry cream keeps 2 days refrigerated under film pressed to its surface; beat it smooth before use and do not freeze it.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 8 slices:

Calories: 410 kcal
Total Fat: 19 g
Saturated Fat: 11 g
Trans Fat: 0.4 g
Unsaturated Fat: 7 g
Cholesterol: 205 mg
Sodium: 115 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 52 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 29 g
Added Sugars: 24 g
Protein: 8 g
Lactose: 3 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin C, vitamin A, folate, manganese, calcium, potassium