Neapolitan Pastiera. Easter recipe

How to make a Neapolitan or Napoletana pastiera .

I present you a sweet recipe typical of the area of ​​Naples, Italy, which is traditionally prepared at Easter.

It is a sweet, compact and creamy cake that counts as main ingredients, cooked wheat grain, bulgur, ricotta cheese and a soft citrus and orange blossom aroma.

A cream is prepared with the cooked wheat that serves as a filling for a base cake with the famous pasta frolla .

This type of dough is a variant of shortcrust dough that in Italy and Argentina is used to make crostatas and tarta frolla .

It is a forceful dessert with a crispy exterior thanks to the rolled pasta and a super creamy and aromatic interior. Although its main ingredient is cooked wheat grain, we could substitute it for rice.

The flavor is quite similar and the resulting texture when cooking wheat is very similar. Anyway, if we want to make a Neapolitan pastiera as the canons send, we will surely be able to find bulgur in any herbal shop at a good price.

Although it may seem like a complicated cake, it really isn’t. We can have the rolled pasta prepared in advance stored in the fridge and the filling of this cake is simple. It is about cooking the grain flavored with vanilla and cinnamon and combining it with eggs and ricotta cheese.

A dessert that rivals in Italy the classic panettone , the famous  tiramisu   and the cantucci , the traditional Carnival sweets such as  Chiacchiere , the fritter fritters or the traditional castagnole .

It is a very traditional homemade sweet that is worth preparing, with a flavor very similar to that of rice pudding and with the supplement of the delicious frolla pasta.

Preparation of the rolled pasta for the pastiera

1. You can follow all the advice of this dough or pasta in the specific post on the blog, dough , frolla paste or flora .
2. Although here I will show you a short summary with which it will be perfect. In a bowl, beat the butter with the sugar, the lemon zest, the salt and the flour to form a sand.
3. Add the eggs and the yolk and continue adding the ingredients. We must not knead the mixture, but combine to form a sand. Therefore, the less we handle it and the less heat we transmit to it with our hands, the better.
4. We will have a fairly manageable dough that will not stick to our hands. We form a curler and wrap it with transparent paper.
5. We keep the dough in the fridge until it has acquired consistency, not less than 1 hour.
6. This mass will keep perfectly for several days in the fridge. So we can always prepare the base of the pastiera in advance.

Preparation of the pastiera cream

1. We begin to prepare the cream of the pastiera. To do this we put the wheat grain to cook in 200 ml. of water until it has evaporated.
2. Add to the casserole the milk, the open vanilla bean, the lemon zest, 50 gr. of sugar and butter.
3. We cook the bulgur again with these ingredients for about 30 minutes. We must be careful to stir the mixture from time to time so that it does not stick, just as we would do with rice pudding. We reserve.
4. In a bowl, beat the ricotta cheese with the rest of the sugar and orange blossom water. Add the eggs and integrate into the cream.
5. Add the cooked bulgur, the cinnamon and the frosted fruits. Mix well and reserve.
6. We divide the dough into two parts, one of them being less than the previous one, the one that we will use for the trellis. We flour the work surface and spread the dough that we will use for the trellis so that we have about 3 or 4 mm.
7. We place the dough on a tray and store it in the fridge.
8. This step is done so that, when cutting and handling the dough strips for decoration. Being cold and hard, they do not break and it is easy to install.

Preparation of the pastiera cake. Baking and final presentation

1. We roll the other part of the dough, the one we will use for the base, on the floured work surface. We butter the mold that we are going to use to make the pastiera with butter and line it with baking paper.
2. We pass the dough to the mold with the help of a roller, rolling it into it to move it without it breaking. I have used a 22 cm mold. but you can use a bigger one, so only the cake will be a little less high.
3. We adjust the dough to the mold by raising the edges of the dough about 5 or 6 cm. removing part of the excess dough and cover the dough with the cream that we have reserved.
4. We remove the dough for the lattice of the fridge and cut the strips that we will be placing to decorate the cake. We seal the strips perimeter trimmed and paint with beaten egg.
5. With the oven previously hot at 190ºC we bake the pastiera for 1 hour. Until clicking the cake with a stick it comes out clean.
6. If necessary we can cover the cake with aluminum foil if we see that it is browning excessively.
7. If we use a larger pan, the baking time may be shorter. That is why I advise you to be very aware of the process after 45 minutes.

We will have a great golden and tasty cake, perfect for snacks for the little ones and the sweet tooth.

Follow the step by step that you will find in the album of this Neapolitan pastiera recipe , it will come out the first time.