It’s Halloween weekend and with pumpkins, witches and spiders all around we decided to join in and bake a Halloween crostata.

The crostata has a chocolate base and uses two types of jam, raspberry jam and apricot compote. We used the extra dough to make a spider with its web to decorate the crostata and some extra cookies.

It is delicious to eat and very spooky!

Ingredients

I used a 26cm (10inch) tart pan, which makes about 10 servings depending on the size, and it took about 10 minutes to make the dough.

• 250g Plain flour
• 30g Cacao powder (I used dark chocolate powder)
• 100g Icing sugar
• 120g Butter (cold)
• 1 Egg + 1 Egg yolk (medium size)
• 1 teaspoon Baking powder
• 300-350g Jam

Method

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

2. Add the cold butter in small pieces and the eggs. Mix quickly with your hands combining everything into a compact smooth ball.

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3. Wrapt the dough in cling film and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

4. When it is time to make the crostata, take the dough out of the fridge, dust your counter with a bit of flour and start rolling the dough with a rolling pin. Roll it to make it about 1/2 cm thick and large enough to fit into your tart pan. Use the rolling pin to help rolling the dough over the tart, fit it using your hands and cut any excess from the sides.

Roll out any excess dough and cut strips and shapes, using a dough cutter, a pizza cutter or cookie cutter, to decorate the crostata.

If the dough is too oily or crumbly, dust it with a bit of flour and quickly work it to incorporate it and make a more compact dough.

Another tip, that my sister came up with, is to roll out the dough on a piece of parchment paper. This way you can just flip it over the tart tray, remove the parchment paper and fit the dough into the tin. This technique reduces the risk of breaking the dough when placing it into the tin using a rolling pin.

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5. Cover with jam of preference and decorate with the excess dough.

For this crostata I used raspberry jam along the edges and apricot compote in the centre. I like using compote when making crostata as it is less sugary and a bit more runny so it cooks nicely without burning.

6. Bake in a preheated oven at 170C Fan for 40 minutes.

I usually check the crostata after the first 30 minutes and then decide on whether it needs longer than 40 minutes.

7. Take it out of the oven and let it cool down completely before serving.

Notes

Use any excess dough to make cookies, just roll it out and cut it using cookie cutters. Cookies will take about 15 minutes to cook depending on the size, the bigger you make then the longer it will take them to cook!

The excess dough can also be frozen and used at a later date. Just make sure the dough defrost completely before using it.

Crostata is very fun and easy to make as well as very versatile. Enjoy baking it and let me know if you have any comments or questions!

If you want to make this recipe and share it on your social media please tag me using @prepandproperrecipes and the tag #prepandproperrecipes