Torta Della Nonna

Thursday night I had an Italian Dining workshop and Torta Della Nonna was the dessert on the menu. The name means grandmother’s cake, and is a Tuscan and Roman classic. There are many variations – well, grandmothers vary don’t they! But are always a custard filling flavoured with citrus zest and often contain ricotta like this one.  Some are just a pastry base but others are topped with pastry also. You will nearly always see some sort of Torta della Nonna on sale in pastry shops – they generally look like custard tarts or flans.

The beauty of holding workshops often means there is ‘stuff’ left over so with some pastry and pastry cream left I was able to make a few individual tarts. Most fitting for the Torta Della Nonna I used my Nan’s very original tart dishes which must be at least  40 years old which I remember her using when I was a child.

The quanties below will make a 26cm flan dish

Ingredients – Pastry

• 180g of flour
• 110g butter
• 1 egg
• 50g of icing sugar.

Method – Pastry

• Preheat oven on ‘bake’ to 180C.
• Flour a 24cm – 26cm tart tin
• Place the flour, sugar & butter in a bowl.
• Work the ingredients together until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
• Add the egg and bring dough together then flatten slightly.
• Rest dough in fridge for 20 minutes before rolling out.
• Roll out thinly to fit pastry tart tin

Ingredients – ricotta cream:

• 250g of ricotta
• 3 eggs & 2 yolks
• 300ml of milk (room temperature, not straight from the fridge)
• 60 g of plain white flour
• seeds of one vanilla pod
• 150g of sugar.
• Zest of one orange
• 100g Pine-nuts to decorate.

Method – ricotta cream

• In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla seeds.
• Sift in the flour and whisk whilst adding it.
• Add the milk and whisk again to combine.
• Put the mixture in a pan on a low heat and stir continuously until it starts to thicken.
• Add the ricotta & orange zest to the custard, mix and pour into the pastry case.
• Sprinkle top with pine-nuts.
• Bake for 30-40 minutes.
• Serve dusted with icing sugar.

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