Ingredients

  • Pastry Dough
    • 2 cups flour
    • ¼ cup sugar
    • ½ teaspoon salt
    • 1 ½ sticks butter, unsalted, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
    • 2 large egg yolks
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 1 tablespoon cold water
  • Fig Filling
    • 12 oz. dried figs, stemmed and coarsely chopped
    • 1 ¼ cups water
    • 1 cup fresh orange juice
    • ¼ cup dark brown sugar, packed
    • 1 stick butter, unsalted, melted and cooled
    • 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 1 teaspoon orange zest
    • 6 oz. walnuts, coarsely chop
    • ½ cup mascarpone cheese

Directions

1. Pastry Dough: Blend together flour, sugar, salt and butter. Add yolks, vanilla and water and gently pulse until incorporated. Turn out dough onto floured surface and divide into 4 portions. With heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice to distribute fat. Gather all dough together, then divide dough in half. Make disks, wrap and chill until firm, at least 1 hour.
2. Make Fig Filling: Simmer figs, water, orange juice, and brown sugar in medium saucepan, covered, stirring occasionally, until figs are soft and mixture is reduced to about 2 cups, 20 minutes. Pulse in food processor until finely chopped, not smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and cool slightly. Stir in butter, eggs, vanilla, zest and walnuts.
3. Tart Shell: Preheat oven to 375*F/170*C/GM4 with rack in middle. Place baking sheet in oven. Generously butter springform pan.
4. Roll out 1 portion of dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper into a 12 inch round (dough will be soft, chill or freeze briefly, if difficult to work). Peel off top sheet of parchment and carefully invert dough into pan. Press dough onto bottom and 1 inch up side of pan, then trim excess. Chill tart shell until ready to assemble crostata.
5. Roll out remaining dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper into a 12 inch round. Peel off top sheet of parchment, then cut dough into 10-1 inch wide strips and slide, still on parchment, onto a tray. Chill until firm, about 10 minutes.
6. Assemble crostata:
7. Spread fig filling in shell. Arrange 5 strips of dough 1 inch apart on filling. Arrange remaining 5 strips 1 inch apart across first to form a lattice. Trim edges of strips flush with edge of shell.
8. Bake until filling is slightly puffed and pastry is pale golden, about 30 minutes. Cool completely, then remove side of pan. Serve crostata with mascarpone.
9. Note: Dough can be chilled up to 3 days. Crostata can be made 1 day ahead and kept at room temperature.

Notes
Original serves 8.


Keywords
tart, pie, fruit, nuts
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