Friday, November 26, 2010

Crostata

And I am back...


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.


Thank you for a wonderful challenge, Simona! It's been a while since my last BD challenge and crostata fit the bill -- how can you go wrong with a lemony flaky crust and some delicious filling? By over thinking it... I spent a long time wondering what to use as a filling -- apples? sweet potatoes? pumpkin? cranberries? Until it was the night before Thanksgiving and I needed to bring a desert. After hours of research, I decided to go with caramelized pumpkin. The crust was by far my favorite part of my crostata-- lemony, flaky, utterly delicious. The filling fell somewhat short -- it was too sweet and I tried to correct it by adding lemon juice and zest, quite bland and pumpkin pie spices went in. As some point I was close to giving up and swinging by the store to pick a dessert but somehow, after cooling, the flavor somehow blended wonderfully. I will not be using the pumpkin recipe again, will some more worth while filling.