Cassata Al Forno by Chef Paul Hollywood Photo by
PAUL Hollywood’s cassata al forno!
Pastry ingredients
- 250g plain flour
- 100g unsalted butter, diced
- 100g castor sugar
- Zest of a lemon
- One egg plus one yolk
Filling ingredients
- 500g cream cheese
- 175g castor sugar
- 75g chocolate chips
- Zest of a lemon
- One teaspoon vanilla extract
- 200g cake or biscuit crumbs
- Egg white to glaze
- Lots of icing sugar to dust
Preparation
- Pastry: Put flour in bowl. Add butter and sugar. Rub with fingertips until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add lemon zest and stir mix. Add egg and yolk, and mix to form soft dough. The mix will look dry but pastry will form as you work it. Wrap in cling film. Leave in fridge to chill.
- Filling: Drain ricotta with sieve a couple of times until smooth and creamy. Mix with sugar, chocolate chips, orange zest and vanilla extract.
- Heat oven to 180ºC. Grease and line base of 20cm tart tin with parchment paper. Grease sides with butter.
- Cut off quarter off chilled pasty for lid. Lightly dust work surface and roll pastry to about 5mm thick. Line prepared tin with the pastry. Trim edges to neaten.
- Sprinkle half cake crumbs in base and cover with ricotta filling. Spread out to level surface. Top ricotta with layer of remaining crumbs. Roll remaining pastry just bigger than the tin. Put tin on rolled-out pastry and cut round base to make a lid. Sit lid on top. Brush edges with egg white. Fold exposed sides of pastry down onto crumb – about 1cm.
- Bake in oven for 40 to 45 minutes until pastry is golden and crisp. Cool for 10 minutes. Cut around edge. Turn out on plate. Dust heavily with icing sugar.
