Daring Bakers, November: Crostata

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

I've made a happy handful of crostata, but this is my new favorite crostata dough recipe. We were allowed to choose our own filling, and I went with a marmalade filling topped with dark chocolate shavings for a nice holiday dessert to serve at my annual Fall Dinner.



Because it was a dinner party,I only got a couple of shots of my crostata.


Here's a slice all dressed up with somewhere to go (someone's mouth). I grated the chocolate right on top. I'd originally intended to do chocolate curls, but I didn't have time to warm the chocolate first (just warm the bar slightly so the chocolate curls up under you knife or veggie peeler instead of flakes or chips off the block as it did here).

Overall, I loved the outcome, although I wish the marmalade had been a bit tarter like a traditional British marmalade, although I was able to find one that wasn't loaded with sugar.

Notes:
-For a really buttery crust, I worked with frozen butter and left the chunks fairly large instead of rubbing it into the flour as the recipe called for.

-I was light with my kneading, stopping as soon as the ingredients came together into a loose ball.

-I rolled the dough between a sheet of parchment paper and a sheet of plastic, then transferred the dough on the plastic wrap to the tart pan by inverting the tart pan onto the rolled dough and flipping it over. The wrap helped me handle the dough without getting gooey or ripping the dough.

-I was initially concerned when I saw the filling didn't fill the tart pan, but in the end, I knew it was a good thing because that would've been a huge mouthful of marmalade, and even a big marmalade fan with me would've wanted to rip my mouth off after one bite. If I'd done the chocolate the way I'd initially planned, the curls would've filled the shell better. I'd also planned to use some stars I'd cut out to set up with the chocolate curls, but I overbaked/overbrowned them a bit in the oven and were sacrificed to the quality control squad. ;)

Check out my fellow DBers' crostatas by linking off our blogroll.