Pasticciotto from Lecce original recipe with lard: preparation…

• To start preparing the pasticciotti, begin with the cream. I use a faux pastry cream, much lighter than the classic version but still delicious.

  In a saucepan combine the flour, sugar and vanillin, mix, then add enough milk to dissolve and smooth out any lumps. Add the whole egg and the yolk and mix until the mixture is uniform.

  Continuing to stir, add the rest of the milk and make the mixture smooth and fluid.

  Place over low heat and stir until the cream thickens (you may notice some lumps forming; don’t worry — they will dissolve if you keep stirring continuously with a whisk). Turn off the heat just before it reaches a boil.

  With the heat off, add a generous grating of organic lemon zest, mix and transfer everything to a bowl. Cover with cling film and let it cool.

  

• After preparing the cream, you can move on to the shortcrust pastry.

  The pasticciotto pastry is a typical dough from the south of Italy that uses lard as the fat component instead of oil or butter.

  Lard, besides making the pastry more delicate and crumbly, allows better handling during summer and spring temperatures because it melts less easily than butter, making the dough more workable.

  Don’t ask me to replace the lard with butter or oil — you’d completely change the structure of the pastry, creating something totally different, less crumbly and rather crunchy.

  Now for our pastry: pour the flour onto a work surface, form a well, add the lard and work it with your hands until you obtain a sandy, fairly homogeneous mixture. Reform the well and add the egg, the yolk, the sugar, the vanillin and the baking powder, then work quickly with your hands until you get a smooth, homogeneous dough.

  Divide the dough into two pieces and with one of them line the molds. Simply detach a small piece and press it into the mold to cover it well.

  

• After lining the molds, roll over them with the rolling pin to cut off the excess dough cleanly.

  Fill each mold with a generous spoonful of cream, forming a slight dome.

  Dust the work surface with flour and roll out the remaining pastry into a sheet about 3/16″ (4–5 mm) thick. Cut the sheet into rectangles and place one rectangle over each pasticciotto. Be careful not to press them down, so as to keep the dome created by the cream. Use your thumb pressed against the edge of the mold to remove excess dough while sealing the pasticciotto at the same time (unfortunately there’s no photo of this final step). Once assembled, brush with a beaten egg mixed with a little milk and bake in a conventional oven at 356°F for 15 minutes, or until you reach the desired golden color.

  Turn off the oven, let them cool slightly for about thirty minutes, unmold and serve.

  Store leftover pasticciotti for a maximum of two days, covered under a glass dome in a cool, dry place. Over time they will soften, but will still be delicious.

  

• If you liked this recipe, take a look at:

  –Focaccia Barese with cherry tomatoes and olives;

  –Sicilian Iris with chocolate cream;

  –Cream and fig tart scented with cinnamon;

  –Quick pastry cream with whipped cream;

  –Baked zeppole with pastry cream;

  –Catanese sweet panzerotti with white and cocoa cream;

  –Iris with white cream, Catanese recipe;

  –Pasteis de nata, Portuguese recipe.

  

• In the traditional pasticciotto recipe, ammonia (baker’s ammonia) is used as a leavening agent — an ingredient common to many sweets from southern Italy.

  However, ammonia leaves a persistent smell in freshly baked goods, so I prefer to replace it with baking powder.