Pasticciotto Leccese
Puglia · dolce · serves 8 · 120 min total · medium
Invented in 1745 in Galatina by pastry chef Andrea Ascalone, who pressed leftover frolla and crema into small moulds and baked them hot to use up scraps before closing shop. The mayor of Galatina tasted one, demanded another, and a Salento monument was born. Every bar in Lecce sells them by 7 a.m.; tourists ask for them cold, locals refuse to eat them any way but molten.
Ingredients
- 400 g 00 flour
- 200 g lard (strutto), cold, cubed
- 160 g sugar
- 1 egg egg
- 2 yolks egg yolks
- 6 g baking powder
- 1 lemon lemon zest
- 1 pinch pinch of salt
- 500 ml whole milk
- 4 yolks egg yolks for crema
- 120 g sugar for crema
- 40 g flour for crema
- 1 lemon lemon zest for crema
- 1 yolk egg yolk for brushing
Method
- Pasta frolla: rub the lard into the flour with sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest to a fine crumb. Add the whole egg and yolks. Bring together fast — do not overwork. Wrap, chill 30 minutes.
- Crema pasticcera: whisk the 4 yolks with sugar and flour to a pale ribbon. Warm milk with lemon zest until just below simmer. Pour the hot milk onto the yolks, whisking. Return to low heat, stir until thick — about 5 minutes. Cool with a film touching the surface.
- Butter 8 oval moulds (the classic pasticciotto mould — about 9×6 cm, 3 cm deep). If you have no oval moulds, use round muffin tins.
- Roll the pastry to 4 mm. Line each mould, pressing into the corners, leaving an overhang.
- Fill three-quarters full with the cold crema pasticcera. Do not overfill — it will dome as it bakes.
- Cap with a disc of pastry. Press the edges to seal, trim flush — no fluting; the pasticciotto must be smooth.
- Brush the tops generously with the beaten yolk.
- Bake at 200°C (390°F) for 22–25 minutes — deep mahogany gold on top. The high heat is non-negotiable; it sets the lard pastry instantly so it shatters.
- Unmould warm. Salentini eat them caldissimi, straight from the oven, for breakfast with a coffee — the crema still molten.