Italian spring recipes: fresh fruit tart

Many Italians celebrate birthdays and other important events with a large fruit tart made from shortcrust pastry, custard and fresh fruit.
Called a ‘crostata alla frutta’ you’ll often find it considered a traditional Italian dessert, and as we’re now in spring, we’d thought we’d bring you the recipe.

Some supermarkets have shortcrust pastry bases already available, but it’s still nice to make your own.
For the pastry, you’ll need the following ingredients:350 g of flour, 150 g of sugar, 150 g of butter, three egg yolks, grated lemon skin, a little salt, and if you want it softer and not so ‘biscuity’, you can add a little yeast.

Likewise, homemade custard is tastier and if you’re careful it doesn’t turn into scrambled eggs, it’s not difficult to do.
For the custard: 100 g of sugar, 100 g of flour, 500 ml of milk and two eggs.
For the fruit decoration you can choose anything, seasonal fruit is best, but here you can let your imagination run wild, especially with how to decorate your tart.
To prepare the pastry, work the butter and sugar together by hand and then sift in the flour.

Add the eggs and lemon rind.
After adding a pinch of salt, knead the pastry and then leave to refridgerate for a few minutes.
Roll it out and place it in a buttered flan tin.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 180°.
Meanwhile, make the custard by sifting the flour and adding the milk a little at a time to the rest of the ingredients.
Put the ingredients in a saucepan and heat on high for about a minute, while mixing.
Leave to cool and place in the fridge for an hour.
Cut the fruit you’ve chosen into cubes or slices, take the pastry from the oven and fill with custard.
Don’t overdo the custard as you don’t want it to overwhelm the pastry.
Decorate with fruit and you’ve got a homemade fruit tart!