Crostata is an Italian-style tart, this version has hazelnuts in the crust and is filled with apples to create a rustic-looking dessert.
The apple crostata is a sweet tart that can be eaten alone for a morning or afternoon treat or served for dessert with vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
If you don’t have moonshine jelly for the recipe it can be substituted with apple jelly, a simple syrup, egg wash, or apricot jelly. Spiced rum can be used as an alternative to apple pie liquor.
Apple Crostata Recipe
Ingredients
Pastry Dough
- 1 cup raw hazelnuts
- 1 cup flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cup butter cold and cubed
- 1 egg yolk
- 2-3 tablespoons ice water
Apple Filling
- 2 cups dried apples diced
- 1/2 cup apple pie liquor
- 2 medium honey crisp apples
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
To Cook
- 1/2 cup applesauce stewed apples
- 1/2 cup apple pie moonshine jelly melted
- 1 tablespoon decorative sugar turbinado or shimmer
Equipment
- baking tray
- Parchment paper
Directions
Pastry Dough
- Place hazelnuts, flour, sugar, brown sugar, and salt into a food processor with blade attachment and pulse until the nuts are finely chopped. About the size of a small lentil.
- Add the cubed butter then pulse, when ready the mixture will look quite dry and resemble moist breadcrumbs.
- Add yolk and a tablespoon of water then pulse. Add an extra tablespoon or 2 of water from the top when pulsing, just so that the whole mixture comes together and begins to pull away from the sides of the bow. You don’t want to overwork the dough, which would make it tough, or add too much water.
- Flour your hands well then remove the mixture from the processor and knead. When the dough has come together shape it into a disc about 1” high x 10” round (2 1/2cm high x 25cm round), wrap with plastic wrap, and chill for 1 hour.
Apple Filling
- Place the dried apples into a saucepan and pour the liquor over them. Bring to a simmer and stir to coat evenly. Remove from heat and cover with a lid to re-hydrate for at least 20 minutes.
- Slice the apples thinly and toss them in the lemon juice and brown sugar. Set aside until ready to assemble the filling.
To Cook
- Preheat the camp oven to 365 degrees F (185 degrees C).
- On a clean and floured work surface using a rolling pin roll out the chilled dough to create a circle about 12 inches round and ¼ inch thick (30cm round and 6mm thick).
- Carefully lift up the pastry with a rolling pin onto a greased parchment on a baking sheet. Note: This dough is easily torn due to the rough texture of the nuts- if it does rip getting it onto the baking sheet, you can push it back together with your fingers. Alternatively, knead it briefly back together and re-roll.
- Spoon the applesauce onto the center of the dough leaving a 2” (5cm) frame of dough, spread out the rehydrated dried apples on top of this. Finally, arrange the fresh apples on top in a spiral pattern beginning at the center and working out until you have used all of the slices and covered the dried apples.
- Fold the pastry edges up over the filling and trim off any overhang if desired.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes then remove from the oven and brush over the melted apple pie moonshine jelly and sprinkle with decorative sugar. Return to the camp oven and bake for a further 10 minutes so the glaze is shiny and the crust is firm, the apples are golden brown and the hazelnut texture is visible.
Nutritional Information
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