Easy Crostata

Crostata is an Italian jam tart with a light pie crust as a base, jam or fruit filling, and a pastry lattice top.

The pie crust is similar to a fruit tart, apple tart, or lemon bars, and the filling is store-bought or homemade jam.

You can make crostata at home with flour, sugar, water, oil, baking powder, and jam in about 10 minutes and bake it in 30 minutes.

Crostata is perfect as a snack, for afternoon tea or coffee, or as a sweet dessert after dinner. Some Italians also eat crostata for breakfast with their coffee.

Flour

We make crostata with all-purpose flour. If you use a different flour (like spelt, oat, or whole wheat), you’ll need to add a little more water, one tablespoon at a time.

You can easily use a 1-to-1 gluten-free flour mix to make crostata gluten-free.

Sugar

We use white granulated sugar. You can use any sugar in granular form.

Oil

Choose a neutral-flavored vegetable oil such as a light olive oil, sunflower oil or olive oil. Oil is super easy to work with and produces a delicious crust.

You can substitute butter (or dairy-free butter) for oil, melted in the microwave for 30 seconds. Working with butter is a little trickier, so I’d recommend starting with an oil-based dough.

Water

We cut the water with oil. As strange as it sounds, water is a crucial ingredient in our crust recipe. It produces a light crust with crispy edges.

Lemon zest

We use a little lemon zest to flavor the pie crust with a mild lemon aroma. You can substitute orange zest or lime zest for lemon.

Vanilla extract

You can use vanilla extract, essence, aroma, or real vanilla beans; anything will work in this recipe. We use it to flavor the crust of the crostata.

Baking powder

Baking powder is the secret ingredient in our pie crust recipe. Since we don’t use eggs, the baking powder makes the crostata crust light and crumbly, as it’s supposed to be.

Jam

The most classic crostata is with apricot jam; however, you can use any jam. Try plums, cherries, figs, berries, strawberries, oranges, and more. We like using jam with loads of fruit pieces and reduced sugar.

Authenticity note: You can fill crostata with whatever you want, from ricotta to custard, cream, fresh fruit, and Nutella.

You can even bake the crust empty and then fill it with custard and fresh fruit, as we do in our fruit tart.

Equipment

You’ll need a 9- to 10-inch (24- to 26-cm) tart pan with a removable base.

You can also make this in a pie dish, but in this case, you need to line it with parchment paper before removing the crostata from the dish.

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C. Brush your tart pan with oil, then dust it with flour.

Add the wet ingredients—sugar, water, oil, lemon zest, and vanilla extract—to a mixing bowl.

Stir well with a spatula until the sugar and the oil are combined.

Combine flour and baking powder in a separate bowl, then add them to the wet ingredients.

Mix with a spatula until the mixture turns into dough.

Compact the dough with your hands until all the pieces come together.

Tip: There’s no need to knead the dough; ensure all pieces stick together. Also, don’t overwork the dough. Overworking it with your hands will develop the flour’s gluten, making your crust hard, chewy, and compact. Also, unlike most other tart recipes, there’s no need to let the dough rest in plastic wrap.

Shape the crust

We take 3/4 of the pastry dough and transfer it to the tart pan. We use the remaining 1/4 for the lattice pattern.

Flatten the dough with your hands until it covers the pan’s bottom and sides.

Prick the bottom and the sides with a fork.

This prevents air bubbles from cracking the crust.

Filling and topping

Fill the base with the jam. Spread it out with the back of a spoon.

Tip: if your jam is compact, stir it in a bowl first to break off lumps.

Dust a working surface with flour (using a cutting board) and roll the remaining dough with a rolling pin. Cut 8 – 10 strips with a sharp knife or a pastry wheel cutter.

Arrange five strips on top of the crostata, then diagonally arrange the other five strips to form a lattice top.

Apply some pressure with your fingers where the strips and the edge of the tart meet to stick together.

Bake and serve

Bake on a baking rack (not a baking sheet) in the center of the oven at 350°F or 180°C for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the crostata is golden brown.

Let cool down before removing from the tart pan. Slice and enjoy.

Authenticity note: Some Italian nonnas sprinkle the crostata with powdered sugar.

Tips

• Mix the wet ingredients well: you want the sugar to bind with the oil and almost dissolve. The best way to do this is with a silicone spatula or whisk.
• Don’t over-knead: over-kneading will develop the gluten, making the crostata more compact and heavy.

Questions

Similar recipes

RECIPES WITH PIE CRUST: Vegan pumpkin pie, apple pie, vegan lemon bars, fruit tart, kiwi tart, fruit pizza, torta della Nonna, strawberry tart.

EGG-FREE DESSERTS: Easy apple cake, vegan custard, carrot cake, healthy apple bread, vegan apple muffins, egg-free lemon cake, easy chocolate cake, vegan vanilla cake.

For many more easy dessert ideas, check out our desserts category page.