Pastiera: A closely guarded Italian dessert recipe

Pastiera is an Italian dessert which originates from Naples. As my husband’s family is from Naples, I was fortunate enough to be given this closely guarded Italian dessert recipe which has been passed on from generation to generation. Although many pastiera recipes include candied fruits, our family recipe omits this. A few say it’s not pastiera then but many more say it’s better without the candied fruits. For me, since I don’t like candied fruits – it’s perfect.

This past Easter I made two pastieras which both turned out great! One was for the family lunch and another for a good friend who shared it with others. My sister-in-law had advised me to make the pastiera a few days in advance so that it will taste even better as the ingredients needed the time to mix. So if you can, make it a few days in advance.

In general it’s not difficult to make pastiera but for me, it took longer than I expected. The problem I had was making the crust which for most people is the easiest part. Here are some pictures of my pastiera making process. Oh one more thing – if you would like to have a copy of this Italian dessert recipe, please email me.

1	Pasta Frolla - Pie Crust	This is my Achilles heel – making the crust. It looks pretty decent here in this picture but when I pick it up to lay it on to the pie pan, it starts breaking apart. Something I definitely need to work on before next Easter.
2	Finally it's done! Next....	After a lot of effort, I managed to put the crust into the pan and tried to make it look decent. The fortunate thing is people don’t usually look at the crust – they just eat it!
3	The filling is in...	Once the pie crust was covered with the pastiera filling it looked good. The crust become a none issue after that.
4	Ready for the oven	Using the leftover pasta frolla, cut thin strips and place them on top of the pastiera and then it’s ready to be popped into the oven for over an hour.
5	Ready to dig in?	An here it is..the pastiera. Get ready to dig in….it’s super yummy!
6	My niece loves these cookies	There was a lot of pasta frolla left and so I decided to make cookies so my niece can have them for her mid-afternoon snack!