Photography: John Paul Urizar / Styling: Kate Brown
Golden and glossy, this hazelnut and orange crostata from the Women’s Weekly kitchen is the kind of dessert that stops conversations mid‑sentence. Think crisp, buttery pastry wrapped around a creamy hazelnut custard, all crowned with jewel‑like candied oranges that taste as good as they look. It’s rustic Italian baking at its most irresistible – deceptively simple, endlessly impressive and guaranteed to become that recipe everyone asks you for. Ready to fall in love at first slice?
For more Italian recipes, try this tiramisu, these Italian meatballs or this Italian meringue celebration cake.
Ingredients
Method
Make the candied orange: Place orange slices in a large saucepan with enough cold water to cover; bring to the boil, then drain. Repeat process seven times to remove the bitterness from the orange rind. Place sugar, glucose syrup and ½ cup (125ml) water in a large saucepan over medium heat; stir until sugar dissolves and mixture simmers. Add orange slices; bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low, cover surface with a round of baking paper; simmer for 1 hour or until slices are translucent and syrup is thick. Transfer slices to wire racks in a single layer to cool. Place ¼ cup syrup in a small bowl; stir in grappa. Reserve for brushing.
Meanwhile, make the hazelnut filling: Bring 1 cup (250ml) milk almost to the boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk egg yolks, sugar and remaining milk in a heatproof bowl until thick. Add flour; whisk to combine. Gradually pour in milk mixture, whisking to combine. Return mixture to pan; whisk over medium heat for 3 minutes or until mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat; whisk in butter until combined. Transfer custard to a heatproof bowl; whisk in grappa, hazelnut meal and orange blossom water. Cover surface directly with plastic wrap; refrigerate until chilled.
Place a heavy-based oven tray in the oven and preheat to 180°C. Unroll pastry sheet onto baking paper; it will be 27cm x 47cm.
Spread hazelnut filling over pastry, leaving a 4cm border. Cut four orange slices in half and place at the edge of the filling border then fold in pastry edges; brush edge with egg wash.
Slide crostata on paper onto hot oven tray. Bake for 40 minutes or until golden. Cool on tray.
To serve, top crostata with remaining candied orange slices and dust pastry edge with icing sugar; drizzle with grappa syrup.
This is an edited extract from ‘Italian: Fresh Zesty Flavours’ by The Australian Women’s Weekly, published by Are Media, $49.99.
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