中文
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • CREDITS
    • RESOURCES
    • Privacy Policy
  • ITALY
  • RECIPES
  • INGREDIENTS
  • EQUIPMENT
  • TECHNIQUE
  • WINE
  • Free Updates
  • BLOG
  • chinese

Living a Life in Colour

a guide to Italian food, wine and culture

Crostata di castagne, cioccolato e pere (chestnut, chocolate and pear tart) – Valle d’Aosta

 

Crostata di castagne, cioccolato e pere (chestnut, chocolate and pear tart) - Valle d'Aosta
 
Print
Prep time
1 hour 10 mins
Cook time
40 mins
Total time
1 hour 50 mins
 
This is my husband's favourite dessert. It makes the best use of local ingredients in Piemonte and Valle d'Aosta in the autumn and winter: pears and chestnuts. The combination with the chocolate, also another local speciality, is utterly decadent.
The pastry and pears can be made 1 to 2 days in advance. If you are short on time, you could use store bought short crust pastry and tinned pear halves. The only thing you will need to make is the chocolate custard filling.
Author: Woo Wei-Duan
Recipe type: Dessert (Dolci)
Cuisine: Valle d'Aosta
Serves: 10
Ingredients
  • Pastry:
  • 300 grams butter
  • 200 grams caster sugar
  • 10 grams honey
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 400 grams 00 or plain flour
  • 75 grams chestnut flour
  • 25 grams cocoa flour
  • Chocolate custard:
  • 55 grams milk chocolate, broken into small pieces
  • 180 grams dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
  • 125 grams whole milk
  • 180 grams double cream
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 7 grams platinum gelatin sheets, soaked in cold water
  • Poached pears (see recipe here) (can substitute tinned pear halves)
Instructions
  1. Pastry:
  2. Beat the sugar and butter together in a mixer until fluffy and has whitened.
  3. Add the honey and yolks to combine.
  4. Sift in the flour, chestnut flour and cocoa powder and mix only to combine.
  5. Try not to over stir the flour as it will start to form gluten strands.
  6. Roll the pastry into a ball and wrap in cling film. Rest the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour and up to two days.
  7. Custard:
  8. Bring to a simmer the milk and cream.
  9. Pour over the chocolates.
  10. When the chocolate has melted, add the egg, egg yolk and gelatine, stirring until smooth.
  11. Tart:
  12. Preheat the oven to 175C. Divide the pastry in half. Grease a tart tin/ring.
  13. If using a tart ring, place it on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
  14. Roll out half the dough and use it to line the tart tin/ring.
  15. Push down the dough in the corners of the tin so that the sides don't slip down.
  16. Use a small knife to cut off any excess dough around the edge.
  17. Prick the pastry all over with a fork and refrigerate for 10 minutes. (Little hands are good for this)
  18. Bake the pastry for 10 minutes or until golden.
  19. Remove it from the oven and pour half of the chocolate custard in. Place the pears, cut side down into the custard.
  20. Top with the remaining custard.
  21. Roll out the second ball of pastry.
  22. Place it on top, pushing down the edges and cutting off any excess. Cut vents into the top.
  23. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Let cool completely before serving.
3.5.3208

 

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe by e-mail. Thanks for visiting!

Thanks for visiting Living a Life in Colour again, good to have you back here. If you haven't yet, you might want to subscribe by e-mail . Enjoy! Thanks for visiting!

Learn how to make Italian recipes for family and friends.

Recipes

Connect

Woo Wei-Duan provides practical instruction on Italian cooking and recipes as well as musings on life and family on this website. Read More…

Contact Us

Learn how to make Italian recipes for family and friends.

Featured posts

Venice flooding in 1966 by By Unknown
Panzarotto (a deep-fried pizza pocket filled with molten mozzarella and tomato sauce)
Creative Commons Licence
Mei Man Ren Sheng by Woo Wei-Duan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.