Italian Piedmont Hazelnut Nutella Crostata | Crostata alla Nutella e Nocciole del Piemonte
This is the hazelnut tart of the Langhe hills: a short, sandy pasta frolla enriched with hazelnut flour, filled with hazelnut and cocoa spreadable cream loosened into a pipeable custard, and closed with a lattice. It is easy to make badly. The filling is nearly half fat, and that fat is the whole technical problem of the recipe.
Yield: one 9 inch (23 cm) tart, 10 slices. Prep: 35 minutes. Chill: 2 hours. Bake: 35 minutes in two stages. Cool: 2 hours. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: dolce. Region: Piedmont, the Langhe and Alba.
The Story
Piedmont grows the hazelnut that made this flavour possible. The Tonda Gentile Trilobata, cultivated on the slopes around Cortemilia and through the Langhe and Roero, has a thin shell, a high oil content and a kernel that peels cleanly after roasting, and it carries the IGP designation Nocciola Piemonte. Those hills were planted with hazelnut partly because they could not be planted with much else: the marl and sandstone slopes too steep or too poor for Nebbiolo took nut trees instead, and by the nineteenth century the harvest was a cash crop that travelled down to Turin.
The pairing of that nut with cocoa was an accident of politics. The Napoleonic continental blockade of the early 1800s choked off cocoa arriving through Atlantic ports, and Turin confectioners, then the most advanced in Italy, stretched what little they had with the cheap local nut. By 1865 Caffarel was selling the result in a wrapped ingot shaped like a boat and named gianduja, after the Piedmontese carnival puppet. Turin had turned a shortage into an identity, and hazelnut and cocoa became the flavour of the region rather than a substitution for something better.
The spreadable version arrived after the Second World War, when Pietro Ferrero in Alba worked the same logic again: a firm nut and cocoa paste, cut with vegetable fat so it stayed soft enough to spread on bread at a time when butter was scarce and expensive. It sold as Giandujot, then as Supercrema, and finally under the name everybody now uses. Within a decade every kitchen in the Langhe had a jar, and it went straight into the tart the region already knew how to make.
Crostata is the oldest baking format in the Italian home repertoire, a frolla case with whatever the pantry held, usually jam. Once a jar of hazelnut cream sat on the shelf beside the jam, the substitution took about five minutes to occur to somebody. This tart is that swap, made properly, with hazelnut worked into the pastry as well so the two halves of the dish speak the same language.
Ingredients
For the pasta frolla
All purpose flour, 2 cups (250 g)
Hazelnut flour, finely ground, 1/2 cup (55 g)
Cold unsalted butter, cubed, 10 tbsp (140 g)
Granulated sugar, 1/2 cup (100 g)
Egg yolks, large, 2
Whole egg, large, 1
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1/2 lemon
For the filling
Hazelnut and cocoa spreadable cream, 1 1/4 cups (360 g)
Mascarpone, 1/3 cup (80 g)
Whole egg, large, 1
Unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tbsp (6 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 pinch
For finishing
Peeled hazelnuts, roughly chopped, 1/3 cup (45 g)
Egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp (5 ml) whole milk, for the lattice
Powdered sugar, for dusting, 1 tsp (3 g)
Preparation
Mixing the frolla
Rub the cold cubed butter into the flour, hazelnut flour, sugar and salt with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse damp sand with no butter piece larger than a pea. Add the yolks, the whole egg and the lemon zest and bring the dough together in as few movements as possible, pressing rather than kneading. It should look slightly underworked when you stop. Divide it two thirds to one third, flatten both pieces into discs, wrap them and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Lining the pan and chilling again
Roll the larger disc on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8 inch (3 mm) and line a 9 inch (23 cm) tart pan with a removable base, pressing the dough into the corner of the pan without stretching it. Trim the rim and dock the base lightly with a fork. Roll the smaller disc to the same thickness and cut ten strips about 3/4 inch (2 cm) wide for the lattice. Refrigerate the lined pan and the strips, separately, for 30 minutes.
Blind baking the shell
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line the chilled shell with parchment, fill it to the rim with baking beans and bake for 18 minutes, then lift out the parchment and beans and give it 5 minutes more, until the base is dry, matte and pale gold right to the centre. This is not a partial gesture. The shell has to be more or less baked through before the filling ever touches it. Cool it completely in the pan, on a rack.
Mixing the filling cold
While the shell cools, work the mascarpone smooth with a spatula, then fold in the hazelnut and cocoa cream, the egg, the cocoa powder and the salt until uniform and glossy. Do not warm the spread to make this easier and do not use a hot bowl. The mascarpone and the egg give it enough body to spread at refrigerator temperature, and cold is exactly what you want. Keep the bowl in the refrigerator until the shell is stone cold.
Filling and laying the lattice
Spread the cold filling into the cold shell in an even layer about 3/4 inch (2 cm) deep, level with the back of a spoon and stop 1/4 inch (6 mm) below the rim. Scatter the chopped hazelnuts over the surface. Lay five strips in one direction and five across, press the ends onto the rim to seal them and brush the lattice, not the filling, with the yolk and milk wash.
The hot short second bake
Raise the oven to 400°F (205°C) and bake the filled tart for 16 to 18 minutes, until the lattice is deep gold and the filling has puffed very slightly and lost its wet shine. It will still move if you nudge the pan. Take it out there. Cool the tart in its pan for 30 minutes, then unmould and cool on a rack for at least another 90 minutes before cutting: the filling sets as it drops to room temperature and a warm slice will slump.
Plating
Serve the tart at room temperature, never chilled and never warm. Cold mutes the hazelnut and stiffens the filling into something waxy; warm and the slice loses its edges. Cut with a thin knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry between cuts, pressing straight down through the lattice rather than dragging, so the strips break cleanly instead of tearing the surface.
Ten slices from a 9 inch (23 cm) tart is the right portion: the filling is rich enough that a larger wedge stops being a pleasure halfway through. Set the slice on a plain plate, dust the lattice only with a whisper of powdered sugar and add a few chopped hazelnuts beside it. A spoonful of unsweetened whipped cream or a plain mascarpone quenelle is the only accompaniment worth adding. Skip the chocolate sauce.
Professional Technique
The one thing to understand here is that a very fatty filling fries the pastry from the inside. Hazelnut and cocoa spreadable cream is close to half fat by weight, and that fat is solid in the jar and thinly fluid at 150°F (65°C). The filling reaches that temperature long before the pastry under it is finished baking, so melted fat ends up in direct contact with a case of flour, sugar and butter that is still soft and full of open spaces. It wicks into them. What comes out of the oven is not a friable shell with filling on top, it is a shell whose crumb has been saturated and has gone greasy and pliable.
Two defences, and they work together. First, blind bake the shell almost completely: a case that has dried out and set its starch has a rigid crumb with far less capacity to absorb, and a sealed inner surface that liquid fat runs across instead of soaking into. Second, put cold filling into a cold shell. Starting both at refrigerator temperature costs the oven several minutes before the fat is fluid at all, and those minutes go into setting the lattice rather than flooding the base.
That is also why this tart bakes hot and fast, 400°F (205°C) for under 20 minutes, where a jam crostata is happy at 350°F (175°C) for 35. Absorption is a function of time spent above the melting point of the fat, so the shortest exposure wins. Baking this tart low and slow does the opposite of what it feels like it should.
Judge the result from underneath. Unmould the cooled tart and look at the base against the light. A correctly baked one is uniform pale gold, matte, with a fine sandy grain, and it snaps when you break a scrap off the rim. A greased base shows darker translucent patches that look permanently wet, usually spreading from the centre, and it reflects light instead of absorbing it. Bend a scrap: if it flexes rather than breaking, the fat got in, and no amount of extra cooling will bring the crumb back.
Texture and Moisture Control
Three textures have to survive: the base sandy and brittle, the filling dense and creamy without being sticky, the lattice crisp on top and tender where it meets the filling. The base is protected by the blind bake and the cold start described above. The lattice is protected by the wash, which sets into a thin film and keeps steam rising off the filling from softening the strips from below, and by brushing only the strips, because wash that pools on the filling bakes into a tacky skin.
The filling itself needs the mascarpone and the egg. Hazelnut spread baked alone loses water, tightens and turns into something closer to a dense ganache that goes claggy on the palate. The mascarpone brings water and milk protein back in, and the egg sets that mixture into a soft custard structure at around 160°F (71°C), which is what holds the slice upright without making it firm.
Cooling is not waiting, it is a stage of cooking. Fat in the filling recrystallises somewhere between 90°F and 70°F (32°C and 21°C), and that is the moment the slice becomes cuttable. Two hours at room temperature is the minimum. Do not put the tart in the refrigerator to speed it up: cooling it too fast sets the fat in coarse crystals and the filling turns grainy and dull on the tongue.
Professional Mise en Place
Everything here is a make ahead operation except the second bake, and the whole recipe hangs on two things being cold at the same moment: the shell and the filling.
Equipment and tools
9 inch (23 cm) tart pan with a removable base
Parchment and baking beans or rice for the blind bake
Rolling pin, fluted pastry wheel or plain knife for the strips
Offset spatula, pastry brush, cooling rack
Prepared ahead
Frolla mixed and divided, up to 2 days refrigerated or 1 month frozen
Shell blind baked, up to 1 day ahead, kept dry and uncovered at room temperature
Filling mixed, up to 1 day ahead, refrigerated in a sealed container
Hazelnuts chopped and the yolk wash beaten, on the day
Service setup
Oven fully up to 400°F (205°C) before the tart is filled, not while
Shell at room temperature or cooler, filling straight from the refrigerator
Lattice strips laid out cold on a tray, ready to move fast
Rack cleared for a 2 hour cool, away from any oven heat
Chef Tips
Buy hazelnut flour rather than grinding your own for the frolla. Home ground nuts release oil and turn to paste before they reach the fineness you want, and that oil goes into the pastry as free fat, which is precisely the problem this recipe is trying to control.
Weigh the spread rather than spooning it. A generous cup can be 60 g over, and in a filling this rich that surplus goes straight to the base as extra fat with nothing to bind it. The stated 360 g fills the shell to the right depth and no further.
If the frolla cracks as you line the pan, patch it with a scrap and press the seam closed rather than re rolling the whole disc. A hole in the base is a direct channel for the filling, and every extra minute of rolling warms the butter and costs you crumb.
Use a light coloured metal pan. Dark pans and ceramic dishes run the base hotter, and ceramic holds heat well past the moment you take the tart out, keeping the base above the melting point of the fat when it should be dropping below it.
Common Mistakes
Skipping or shortening the blind bake. This is the single failure that ruins the tart. A raw or half baked case has an open crumb and no sealed surface, and the melting filling saturates it within minutes. The base comes out pale, heavy and bendy, and nothing later in the process can fix it.
Filling a warm shell. A shell straight from the oven is well above the melting point of the fat, so absorption starts before the tart even reaches the oven. Cool the shell completely, and keep the filling cold until the moment it goes in.
Baking low and slow. At 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes the base spends twice as long soaking in liquid fat as it does at 400°F (205°C) for 18. Hot and short is not a shortcut here, it is the method.
Overfilling the shell. Filling level with the rim overwhelms the base, leaks under the lattice and stops the strips sealing to the edge. Stop 1/4 inch (6 mm) short of the top and level it.
Cutting the tart warm. The filling has not recrystallised yet, so the slice slumps and the lattice collapses into it. Wait the full 2 hours at room temperature.
Wine Pairing
Moscato d'Asti DOCG: The Piedmontese answer and the one served with this tart in the Langhe. Its low alcohol keeps it from amplifying the fat, while the gentle carbon dioxide and the bright grape and orange blossom acidity scrub the palate between bites of a filling that coats it. Crucially its sweetness sits just below the tart's own, so the wine reads as refreshment rather than as a second dessert.
Brachetto d'Acqui DOCG: A sweet, lightly sparkling red from the Monferrato, and the most interesting match on the list. The rose and wild strawberry aromatics land against the cocoa the way raspberry does against chocolate, and the almost negligible tannin means nothing clashes with the nut oils. Serve it cold, around 46°F (8°C), so the bubbles stay tight and the sweetness stays lifted.
Moscato di Scanzo DOCG: A dried grape red from Bergamo, still and concentrated, with dried fig, cinnamon and a light grip of tannin. That tannin is the point: it gives the pairing a dry edge that cuts the richness of the filling in a way no white dessert wine manages, and its dried fruit depth sits comfortably beside toasted hazelnut without competing for the same register.
Vin Santo del Chianti Classico DOC: Aged oxidatively in small barrels, so it arrives with walnut, dried apricot and caramel already built in, and those notes run alongside the roasted nut rather than against it. The acidity underneath is high enough to keep a very sweet wine from turning heavy on a very rich slice. Pour a small measure, cool but not cold.
Storage & Reheating
Keep the tart at cool room temperature under a cake dome or loosely covered with foil, never wrapped in plastic against the pastry, for up to 3 days. It is at its best on day one and day two. The refrigerator is the wrong place for it: the cold dulls the hazelnut, firms the filling into a waxy block and pulls moisture out of the frolla, which then softens as the slice comes back to temperature.
The tart freezes well whole or in slices, wrapped first in parchment and then in foil, for up to 1 month. Thaw at room temperature for 3 hours still wrapped, so condensation forms on the wrapping instead of on the lattice. Refresh it with 6 minutes in a 325°F (165°C) oven, then cool it completely again before cutting, because the fat has to reset.
Do not microwave a slice. The filling goes fluid in seconds while the base stays cold, and the fat soaks in exactly the way this recipe was built to prevent. Unbaked frolla keeps 2 days refrigerated, the filling 3 days in a sealed container.
Nutrition
Per slice, based on 10 slices:
Calories: 485 kcal
Total Fat: 30 g
Saturated Fat: 12 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 17 g
Cholesterol: 85 mg
Sodium: 95 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 48 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 29 g
Added Sugars: 26 g
Protein: 8 g
Lactose: 1.2 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin E, manganese, copper, magnesium, phosphorus, iron
These figures are estimates and move with the brand of spreadable cream used, since sugar and fat percentages vary between them.
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