Crostata

How bad is it that your 5 year old remembers that you used to bake alot but now you don't? She's only 5! I mean how far back can she really remember??? After being nagged for a week of wanting apple pie, I told her I will make a crostata instead. I used shortcuts in this recipe since I didn't have time to make a dough from scratch. Here we go! An apple and a pear crostata.


Ingredients

1 box Pre-made, un baked pie crust.

3 Apples

1 Egg, beaten

1/4 tsp Flour

1/4 tsp Sugar

1/4 tsp Kosher salt

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Allspice

4 tbsp Cold, unsalted butter,, diced

1/4 cup Apricot preserves - reserve 2 tbsp for glazing

2 tbsp Lemon juice



Preheat oven to 350.

Unroll one pie crust onto a parchment paper. Place pie crust onto a baking stone or cookie sheet.

Peel and core apples. See this gadget? It's great to peel apples, pears and potatoes. One everything is peeled, cut the apple in half so that you get nice thin slices like this.

Now place apples in a bowl. Add some lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. Mix well.

Now add, flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and allspice to the apples. Mix well but try not to break the apple slices.

Spread the apricot spread on the pit crust. Leaving about 1 1/2 - 2" of a clean border. Now place the apples in the middle. If you can, you can place them one by one if it's for a party. For moi? I just dump it in and try to make the top level.

Now start pleated the edges all around the pie crust.

Now add about 1 tsp of water to the beaten egg. Use a pastry brush and brush the egg wash over the pie crust. Now sprinkle some sugar onto the pie crust.

Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes until it's a light golden color.

Now heat 2 Tbsp of apricot preserves and use a different pastry brush and brush it on top of the crostata. Let it sit so that the juices get thicker.

Lets take a closeup on my crostata...nice...

....uh...what the heck? Who's this guy???!!! Get away from my goods buster!

Now whip up some whip cream....hmmm...where it my heavy whipping cream???...ok, let's use this instead. It's been in my freezer since last Christmas and it expires at around Thanksgiving from this year! LOL What is this stuff made of!

What the...??!! Him again?!! I know it's not what I use but it was on sale last year and...

...don't wink at me like that! I swear it was on sale and I wanted to get it for last minute whipped cream emergencies. Whatever buddy! Here are my crostatas.

Lets take a small piece since I did make it afterall. Yum!

So as I was saying before I was Gourd Guy showed up, add a dollop of cream next to a slice. Voila! Now my daughter will be happy and I'm off the hook for an apple pie!

For the pear version, it's the same, just replace the apples with the pears.

Bon Appetit!