Torta Della Nonna

After the January Daring Bakers Challenge, I was left with a lot of left over pastry cream. And not only did I have a lot of it, it was quite a runny pastry cream at that. Hating to throw away food, I began scouring the Internet for a solution to my creamy debacle.

Fortunately for me, I am not the first one to find myself in such a situation, as I came across a blog post, "What do you do with left over Pastry Cream? Make a Torta Della Nonna of course!" So, torta della nonna it was.

The dessert is essentially a crostata filled with pastry cream and covered on top with a solid crust. Since I had also been looking for an opportunity to make crostata, this all worked out perfectly.

I made the crust as per the recipe's instructions and found myself with a coarse dough that would not form together. After spending way too much time trying to knead it together on my own, I decided I would give adding a little more liquid a whirl, so I added about a tablespoon of water to the dough. Like magic, it all started coming together into the smooth dough it was destined to be.

I rolled the dough out - on a piece of plastic wrap as suggested - and had no problems with tearing. I had never used the plastic wrap technique before, but I think it worked well. After the bottom croust was in, it was time to fill with the pastry cream and cover with the top crust. Since the cream was so thin, it started to bulge above the top crust, and I began to have visions of disaster. I sealed the cream in as best I could and brushed the top with an egg wash.

The recipe called for the torta to be baked in a pan with a removable bottom - since I did not have one, I used a standard cake pan. The torta baked up with no problems, and I left it on a wire rack to cool. I attempted to remove it from the pan in one piece with no luck - I was irrationally worried that if I breached the crust the pastry cream would all come spilling out. Of course, the pastry cream had cooked in the oven and had taken on a custard-like consistency, so my fears were abated.

The final product was quite the looker. Unfortunately, it is a little rich as a breakfast, although that didn't actually stop me from eating it like one. I also brought it to enjoy with friends and it made a great dessert - eating the torta reminded me just how good homemade baked goods are.

I did have some dough left over from the torta, and I attempted to make some mini-tarts with a jelly filling in my muffin tins. This did not work out so well. If I were to do it again, I would roll out the dough into cookies, and then fill jam following Briciole's recipe for frollini.