Pastera Napoletana (Neapolitanian Easter cake)

Wonderful cake!
Pastiera — traditional Neapolitan cake, which is prepared for Easter. In Italy to the curd also add sprouted grains (often canned). But in the «simplified» version the cake is also very good. Is prepared before the holiday, because it should be eaten the next day, for cake not to harden.
Cooked by «Gastronom» recipe with my small changes.

Preparation

1. Sift the flour with baking powder and pinch of salt. Add 0,25 glass of sugar (55 g.), 120 g. Of cooled and cut butter. Rub, till mixture will look like bread crumbs. Add 2 eggs (unshelled egg weight was 118 g.), mix it. Knead dough not less than 7 min. Divide in 2 parts, wrap each in film and put in the fridge for 1 hour.






2. Make cream (while dough is in the fridge make cream, so it can cool).
Mix in the saucepan 2 yolks with a half of remained sugar (55 g.). Stirring, add starch (corn starch found in the Bill, Kharkov) and remained 3 tbsp of flour. Continue mixing, pour hot milk (pour not at once, to avoid clumps). Put on the heat, constantly stirring (!!!), wait till boiling, cook for 1 min. Mass reminds Choux pastry, but softer, moderately elastic and springy. Remove from the heat, add vanilla sugar (I took half of a teaspoon) and remained butter (it might left 60g.). Mix till it become smooth. Cover and leave it to cool.






3. Mix curd with remained sugar (I took 55 g. And didn`t mix, but rub well with a fork). Continue stirring, add cooled cream and remained 2 yolks. Add peel, candied fuits, cinnamon (cinnamon need quite a bit, because it is strongly felt in this stuffing and put less, better than more).




4. Rool one part off dough in circle of 5–6 сm in diameter, more than diameter of your form (I had 26 сm.). Spread dough in greased form, covering bottom and sides, and put in the fridge for 10 min.


5. With a spoon spread stuffing on cooled dough.


6. Roll the second part of dough in circle with more diameter than your form. Cut in 10 strips with 2,5 сm wide.


7. Spread out strips like «bars» on the surface of the cake. I began to spread from the two central strips perpendicular to each other, then moved to the edge. Pinch the edges. Grease with remained egg. Put the cake in the oven at 180℃ for 1 h 30 min. In 50 min. Cover with a sheet of foil. Leave the ready cake to cool a little in the form, and then pull out from the oven. Cool it till room temperature, then put in the fridge for 2 h. Remove from the form (Icovered with a wide plate and flipped, then covered with another andturned again).




Bon Appetite!

P.S.: my notes:
— do not take too much curd, during baking stuffing rised andpoured out (1 tbsp) on the baking sheet. During cooling filling settled and shape of the cake was preserved.
— the dough into strips for bars at other times will roll out thinner, everything is all right, but it seems to me this will be neat.
— when the cake is cut into pieces,adjust so that in the outer diameter, on the edge, knife didn`t get the dough, and curd, to have neat slices.

… when I`ll have germinated seeds will certainly try it with them))

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