Italian ricotta pie from Campania

If you were lucky enough to spend your Italian Easter in Naples, you may have had the chance to taste this traditional Neapolitan recipe from Campania – ricotta pie.
Called la pastiera, the Italian dessert is made from shortcrust pastry, ricotta, candied fruits and the unusual ingredient of aroma of orange blossoms.

According to Barbara on Italian Notebook, you can buy the orange blossom aroma from pharmacies in Naples, while the ingredient itself is meant to represent “innocence, chastity, eternal love, marriage and fruitfulness” (from the days of the recipe being developed by nuns of the San Gregorio Armeno convent in Naples).

The recipe is key to Neapolitan traditional cooking for Easter.
The recipe uses cooked durum wheat, otherwise you can buy it already pre-cooked.
Ingredients for two pies are: 500 gr of flour, 250 gr of sugar, 250 gr of butter, three eggs and some vanilla powder or essence (for the pastry).
For the filling: 500 gr of ricotta cheese, 275 gr of cooked durum wheat, 200 gr of milk, half a tablespoon of butter, five eggs, 250 gr of sugar, half a tablespoon of lemon zest and the same of orange zest, 25 gr of strega liqueur and 25 gr of rum.

Prepare the pastry the night before by mixing the ingredients together and then kneading.
Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight.
For the filling, place the wheat, butter, lemon zest and milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a low flame, stirring until it becomes a thick cream.
Leave to cool.
Beat the ricotta, sugar, eggs, orange zest, rum and strega together and then add to the cream (if you want to use the traditional ingredient of the orange blossom aroma, substitute the orange zest).
Roll out the dough and line two 23cm flat cake tins with the pastry (keeping a little extra for strips to decorate the top).
Add the mixture, leaving about a centimetre of room at the top of the crust, and then decorate with pastry strips.
Bake in the oven at 200°C for an hour.
You can even leave this over another day so that the flavours fully blend together.