Blackberry Peach Crostata

Earlier this year, I pitched a story and recipe for Torta Pasqualina — an Easter spinach, cheese, and egg pie — to the website Fifth Season. To my delight, my article was picked up, and thus I was on my way to publishing my first ever piece of food writing outside of this blog (!!!) I sent the the story for editing (no changes needed, hurray!) and the recipe for testing, which went equally well. To my surprise, however, I barely recognized a photo of the tested, finished dish — while the sunny-egg yolk-and-emerald green filling was accounted for, the pastry was off the charts. My simple Torta Pasqualina was reborn as this number here, a stunner complete with a lattice, a pastry garden, and various shades of green decorating the crust courtesy of Fifth Season’s talented food editor Jessica. The final product was stunning, baking taken to new levels, and I couldn’t have been more impressed. You can read the finished article here, by the way.

I’m a big fan of baker Erin Jean McDowell’s work (see these flawless Strawberry Biscuits). She is the pinnacle of baking perfection and expertise, one that has shared her secrets in her cookbook The Fearless Baker. There’s no realm of desserts or pastry that Erin doesn’t excel at, and I’m always blown away by her over-the-top cakes, elegant cookie towers, mile-high meringue, and sophisticated pie crusts. There’s also Lauren Ko aka @lokokitchen, a Sorceress of sorts who toes the line between artist and baker, coming up with dessert designs that are mind bending-ly and spectacularly creative and complex (check out her works of art here).

The catch, though?! After nearly 18 years of avid baking, I’ve sort of come to the conclusion that I’m simply not that kind of baker.

You see: I admire detailed, meticulous work, but the truth is I much prefer baking a crumble to a fancy pie, and extravagant cake decorating has never been my thing (I’d take baking a simple, one-bowl cake any day). Macarons are far too fussy for my tastes, too. Put in more practical terms: my poster boards were never so great in elementary school, my handwriting isn’t the neatest, and at age 32 I still find applying eyeliner a hit or miss kind of situation. Chalk it up to impatience on my part, but precision, artistry, and intricacy haven’t always been my strongest points.

…which brings me to this summer-y, low maintenance Blackberry Peach Crostata, which is a sweet that far more my style. The dough itself comes together in the food processor in a matter of minutes, and is incredibly easy to work with. The crust is free-form, requiring no blind-baking or crimping of the bottom crust, and definitely no fussing over a top crust. There’s certainly no lattice, braids, or pastry roses involved, either, and actually — the more imperfect your pastry is, the better (or rustic, really) it looks. Once baked, the pastry is buttery, flaky, and cinnamon-scented, the perfect foil to a tart-sweet filling of juicy sapphire blackberries and sunset peaches, their peak-of-the-season greatness enhanced by a few drops of vanilla and a dash of cinnamon. A scoop of ice cream over the top is pretty much mandatory, as far as I’m concerned — the contrast between icy cold ice cream and just-out-of-the-oven crostata is a thing of true beauty. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: sometimes less is more, and in this case, so much more.

I’m headed to Sicily for vacation (Palermo, Agrigento, Ragusa, Noto, oh my!) and then on to the U.S, so the blog will be on a hiatus for the next few weeks. I’ll be back in September with some new recipes — in the meantime, have a good rest of the Summer, and stay safe everyone!

A couple of notes: The pastry dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or wrapped airtight and stored in the freezer for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, leave it on the counter to come to a workable texture and temperature. Feel free to use any mixture of summer fruit here you’d like; raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, plums, nectarines, etc would also work. Be sure to cut the peaches a little thicker than I did (as you can see from the above, they cook down quite a bit and ended up pretty thin, though still delicious).If you’re not a fan of cinnamon, feel free to leave it out; you could also add some lemon zest here if that is more your style.

Looking for other fruit dessert recipes? Click here.
Looking for more summer dessert recipes? Click here.

BLACKBERRY PEACH CROSTATA

Recipe very roughly adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for Blueberry Galette (Chez Moi). Serves 6-8.

Ingredients for the crust:
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon (two generous pinches, eyeball it) cinnamon (optional)
1/2 teaspoon (3 grams) salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons; 4 ounces; 112 grams) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup (60mL) ice water

Ingredients for the filling:
(330 grams) fresh blackberries
1 large peach, sliced
1/4 cup (50 grams) sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons (3.75 grams, to be precise) cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon (a generous pinch) cinnamon
1 teaspoon cold butter

Cream, milk, or beaten egg to brush the dough with before baking
Sugar for sprinkling the dough with before baking
Vanilla ice cream or freshly whipped cream for serving

Start with your pastry! If you have a food processor: put the flour, sugar, cinnamon (if using) and salt in the bowl of the food processor and pulse a couple of times to blend. Add the butter pieces to the dry ingredients and pulse until it is cut into the flour and the whole mixture resembles sand. Add the ice water a little at a time, pulsing the food processor as you go. Process the dough again, pausing to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed, until your dough comes together. Turn the dough out onto a clean floured work surface.

If you don’t have a food processor, no problem! Whisk together the dry ingredients, and then mix in the pieces of cold butter. Using your fingertips, incorporate the butter in to the dough until it resembles sand (this make take a bit longer than with the food processor, but works great just the same). Stir in the water a little at a time until your dough comes together.

Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disk and put it between two large pieces of parchment paper. Refrigerate it for at least 2 hours.

When the two hours are almost up, get to work on your filling. In a large bowl mix together the blackberries, peach slices, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and cinnamon, if using. Set aside and let it sit for 10 or so minutes, until juicy.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (170 degrees) Fahrenheit.

Take the dough out of the fridge and let it warm slightly for a few minutes on the countertop (this will make it easier to roll). Use a rolling pin, roll the dough out in to a cricle between the two pieces of parchment until it is about 12 inches (30cm) in diameter. Remove the top piece of parchment from the dough, and place the bottom piece of parchment with the dough on top on to a baking sheet.

Spoon the blackberry/peach mixture and any juices onto the crostata pastry, mounding the fruit in the center and leaving a 2-inch (5cm) border. Lift the border of dough up and around the filling — it doesn’t need to be perfect or even, remember. Dot the filling with the cold butter, then brush the dough border with a little cream. Sprinkle it with sugar for shine.

Bake the crostata for 40-45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling. Note: if the crust is getting darker than you’d like it to, just cover it with a foil tent (I had to do this).

Serve the crostata warm or at room temperature with ice cream or whipped cream.