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Pastiera Napoletana

We recently published this lovely family recipe for the famous cake from Naples called "Pastiera Napoletana". A lot of our english-speaking friends have asked us for a translation. Here it is ;-)

As I was visiting an ancient stone mill in Sicily, I was inspired by the scents and colours of the ancient grains and I was brought back to my youth in Naples. Grains have been part of our culture and myths for generations. Sicily was the land of Cerere, goddess of the grain. If I think grain, I can't avoid thinking Pastiera, with its scent of orange zest and fleur d'orange which accompanied my childhood.

For the base: Pasta Frolla

Flour 500g (I used Farina tenera 00 produced by Molino del Ponte called Madonite. I recommend using a low strength flour with a W around 180 - low gluten as the pasta frolla does not need to create "maglia glutinica" as you would for bread and it needs to remain "friabile")

Butter 82% mg. 215g (Parmareggio)

Fine Salt 2g (delle saline di Trapani)

Lemon Zest (from the garden)

Orange zest (from the garden)

Full Eggs 100g (free range from the farm of my friend Giuseppe!)

The base (pasta frolla) is based on a recipe by Leonardo di Carlo (Frolla Magra Sistema Classico) which suggests to mix the butter with salt and the zests, then mix the sugar and eggs and at the end add the flour. Remember to add the sugar once it is soft (normally 18-20 degrees) and do not overwok the dough as you don't want to end up with bread! Once you are done mixing the ingredients, create a flat disk and wrap in clean film. Let it sleep overnight in your fridge (approx. 4 degrees - NOTE: we are from Europe, and we like to make it easy... so we use grams for both solids and liquids and when we talk temperatures we are always referring to Celsius).

In the meanwhile start coking your grains (in this case wheat grains from Molino del Ponte - 500g. Many recipes will advise to use pre-cooked grain (you can even find packages claiming to offer ready made Pastiera grain). The reality is that you can use any wheat grain as long as you keep it cold water for three days (changing the water every morning) as we did with our. Once you are ready, bring the grain to boil and let it cook for at least one hour. How do you know it is done? Experience - as one of my chef friends would say - I would add: make sure it is soft but it does not break into a cream.

As soon as you are finished with the Pasta Frolla, and while your grain is cooking, start mixing the ricotta cheese, normally sheep ricotta cheese (500 grams or the same weight as the flour) with the sugar (250g or half of the ricotta - I suggest to try with even less sugar as I believe you can bring it down to 200g per kg but this is cause I like to keep healthy). Once mixed, add vanilla if you want. Leave the cream in the fridge overnight to sleep with your Pasta Frolla.

Good night!

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Good morning! We woke up thanks to our lovely Cirneco dell'Etna (Gaia) who started knocking at our door at 6:55 am and we are ready to finish our Pastiera.

The Pasta frolla has been maturing in the fridge while the ricotta has absorbed the sugar and the vanilla. Let's take care of finishing with our cream by cooking the grain in milk this time and mixing it with the ricotta and eggs.

Take the cooked grain from yesterday [400g] and soak it in milk (we use full milk) [300g] and the zest of one lemon and one orange (cut it so that you can remove the zest afterwards). Cook the grain in the milk with the zest and 25g of butter until the milk has been totally absorbed by the grain and becomes a cream (30' ca). Remember not to heath the milk more than 65 degrees (in a kitchen you need a thermometer - forget those that tell you to look at the little bubbles on the side of the pan etc. just by a thermometer for a few euros).

Ingredients for the cream :

Cooked Wheat Grain 400 gr

Milk 300 gr

Butter 25 gr

Lemon and orange zest

While the grain is cooking in milk add 3g of cinnamon to the ricotta cheese prepared yesterday, and then incorporate 250g of full eggs.

Wait for the grain cream to cool down after boiling in milk and then mix it with the ricotta and add 125g of candied fruit.

Well done! the filling for your pastiera is ready. Now you only have to create a base with your Pasta Frolla. We used a cake tin 24cm round and 4cm tall (don't forget to grease it with a bit of butter). Fill the base with your cream which should get to 3/4 of total height (the cream will raise once cooked. Make the typical pastiera stripes with the Pasta Frolla left and lay them on the cream (look at the photos for reference). In the past each cook would have her design as they would all bring the pastieras to the same brick oven in the village and once cooked each one of them would know how to recognise their Pastiera based on the stripes design. Cool!

Bake in your pre-heated oven at 160-180 degrees. Remember temperature and time will depend on your oven so you have to experiment and practice. I use a NEFF oven and I bought an oven thermostat that allows me to know exactly what temperature my cake will enjoy inside the oven. Some people also use a thermostat that reveals the temperature inside the cake (I like the idea but it goes beyond my patience level).

Enjoy!

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