Here I am with a new recipe: the Christmas Tree Savory Pie with speck, cherry tomatoes, and olives! Appetizer, Aperitif, Main Dish? I don’t know, you decide. Consider that it’s already a substantial savory dish and should be paired with something lighter if you want to serve this recipe as an appetizer or aperitif. As a Christmas main dish, it’s perfect because you will have already served appetizers and first courses. And there’s always room left for dessert, which is a must during the Christmas Holidays!
As every year, I’m ready with new Christmas recipes to present to you. Let’s start with a beautiful Christmas Tree-shaped Savory Pie. I chose to use speck already during the dough phase, then added some yellow and red cherry tomatoes to create the “Christmas balls” effect and then the green olives that I love, adding that extra touch of color and flavor to this savory pie.
I also made a video recipe for you, so you can follow me step by step, it’ll be like preparing this Christmas savory pie together in my kitchen. Last Christmas, I made some Savory Christmas Trees with sliced bread, and two years ago, I made the Sweet Danubio Christmas Tree filled with jam. So I thought: what can I prepare as a New Christmas Recipe for this year? The answer was simple and quick: a recipe with a Christmas Tree-shaped mold was missing! So I came up with this recipe for a Christmas Tree-shaped savory pie with speck, yellow and red cherry tomatoes, and green olives used both as a trunk and as balls.
Before moving on to the recipe, I’ll leave you with some links to other Christmas recipes that you can find on my cooking blog. From the Savory Christmas Trees we talked about earlier, to breakfast with Christmas French Toast with Panettone, then the inevitable cookies during the Holidays, in this case, I proposed them with cinnamon and without butter with many different shapes. Then there are desserts, also with a tree-shaped mold, with rice flour. Finally, I offer you a complete quick and easy menu for the Christmas Holidays that you can prepare and serve on many informal occasions with friends or with your family.
Remember that I await you every morning in the group and on the Facebook fan page with the Recipe of the Day. An unmissable appointment in my kitchen to greet all of you who are here every day to read my recipes!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 8 People
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: New Year's, Christmas
- Energy 493.43 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 43.36 (g) of which sugars 3.46 (g)
- Proteins 16.40 (g)
- Fat 29.56 (g) of which saturated 7.28 (g)of which unsaturated 20.79 (g)
- Fibers 1.66 (g)
- Sodium 580.85 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 125 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for one Christmas Tree-shaped Savory Pie with speck, cherry tomatoes, and olives
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup potato starch
- 1 packet instant yeast for gluten-free savory preparations
- 3.5 oz speck (IGP cut into strips not too thin)
- 15 cherry tomatoes (both yellow and red)
- 15 green olives
- 4 eggs
- 3.5 oz cheese (grated type to your taste)
- 1 pinch salt
- to taste chopped parsley
- to taste oregano
- 2/3 cup milk
- 2/3 cup seed oil
I chose not to add pepper to this recipe because the speck is already flavored by the curing and I didn’t want to make this scent too strong. Also, I had my Paciccio over for lunch the next day with company who can’t eat pepper or chili, so I didn’t add it to the list of ingredients used. However, if you like it and want to use it, you are free to do so.
Tools to prepare the Christmas Tree Savory Pie with speck, cherry tomatoes, and green olives
- 1 Mold
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Electric whisk
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Food scale
- 1 Spoon
- 2 Glasses
- 1 Brush
- 1 Oven
Steps for the Christmas Tree Savory Pie Recipe with speck, cherry tomatoes, and green olives
Let’s start by preparing all the ingredients on the worktop that we will use for this recipe. Weigh the flour and the starch and sift them. Take the eggs that need to be at room temperature, if you keep them in the fridge, place them on the kitchen counter at least 3 hours before. Pour the liquids into standard glasses that are usually 5 ounces.
Prepare also the tools, so the electric whisks, the bowl, the spatula, the small bowl with brush to wet the mold, the Christmas Tree-shaped mold, and a spoon. Here’s the link to buy (here) the mold if you can’t find it in stationery stores. We’re ready to start.
Turn on the oven to static mode at 338°F. Place the grill or the baking sheet onto which we will place the savory pie with speck and cherry tomatoes in the middle of the oven.
Break the four eggs in the bowl, add a pinch of salt, turn on the whisks and work for about 5 minutes. They should become nice and fluffy. Then add the glass of milk without turning off the electric whisks. Then add the glass of oil continuing to work the dough.
Now it’s time for the grated cheese, the entire quantity should be added to the mixture. Sprinkle with dried parsley and oregano, if you like them, otherwise choose an herb to your taste. If you want to add pepper to this recipe, this is the moment to do it.
We can then proceed with the addition of the flours, the instant yeast for savory cakes, and the other ingredients. Add the flours sifting them, please, it’s very important for the success of the savory pie. Both for its consistency and its baking in the oven. Take your time because it’s really worth it.
In the video recipe, you can see the nice consistency of the eggs and especially the resistance they provide when I sift the flour, the starch, and the packet of yeast for savory cakes into the bowl. That nice mound that forms is because there is the right air in the egg foam that provides resistance to the solidity of the flour.
Work with the whisks until the mixture allows it. Then, of course, switch to the spatula which will allow us to work the mixture more easily now that the consistency has changed. We are then ready to add the IGP speck previously cut into strips not too thin. Its consistency in the savory pie should be felt and appreciated bite after bite. Set it aside for a couple of minutes because we need to grease the mold before pouring the savory pie mixture.
Take a small bowl and pour some seed oil into it. With a kitchen brush, grease the base and walls of the Christmas Tree mold well and gently. Then place the mold in a baking dish, I trust it more because if I leave it on the grate, I’m afraid it might leak liquids and thus dirty the oven, which would need cleaning. Moreover, when I have to take it out, since it will be hot, I wouldn’t be able to hold it well and might risk breaking the savory Christmas Tree.
Now pour the mixture into the mold, level the surface, place the Christmas balls, or rather the ingredients we chose, in my case yellow and red cherry tomatoes and green olives, here and there. Try to give a logical sense to the distribution, both at the corners and the base and here and there in the center, so there are no undecorated spots. If you want, you can add a seed mix as a final decoration. Put it in the middle of the oven at 338°F for at least 50 minutes. Always do the toothpick test before turning off and taking out the cake or the savory pie as in this case.
Let it cool on the kitchen counter for a few minutes before serving the Christmas Tree Savory Pie with speck and yellow and red cherry tomatoes to our friends, guests, or family. You can store the leftover savory pie for a couple of days in a cake holder with a lid. Or keep it in the fridge and warm it up in a small oven or microwave before serving it again at the table.
At this point, I can only wish you bon appétit and remind you that I await you every day here on my blog with many easy, quick, and delicious recipes like this one.
Tips and variations:
Tips have already been written throughout the recipe text, but I want to emphasize not to raise the oven temperature. You won’t help the cooking or even speed it up, but rather you might spoil the Christmas Tree savory pie we are preparing.
Variations are many: from the choice of “decorative balls”, so you can have fun with black olives, red, yellow, black tomatoes. Then maybe add carrot slices, sausages cut into pieces, peas slightly blanched, seed mix to make it even more inviting.
