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Pumpkin Crostata with Chocolate Mousse
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Pumpkin Crostata With Chocolate Mousse Filling

Equipment

  • 1 7-8" flan case with removable base or 3-4 smaller ones

Ingredients

For The Pasta Frolla (pastry)

  • 100 g caster sugar
  • 235 g plain flour
  • pinch salt
  • 115 g cold unsalted butter
  • a few drops of vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk lightly beaten in a small bowl

For The Quark Chocolate Mousse

  • 100 g quark soft cheese
  • 100 g Milk chocolate broken into squares

For The Pumpkin Pastry Cream

  • 200 ml milk
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 75 g pumpkin puree canned
  • 50 g caster sugar (superfine baking sugar)
  • 15 g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 2 tbsp cornflour
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

For The Pasta Frolla (Pastry Case)

  • Put sugar, flour and salt in the food processor and pulse a few times to mix. Add butter and pulse a few times, until the mixture has the consistency of coarse meal. Empty food processor’s bowl onto your work surface.
  • Make a well in the centre of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten eggs into it (reserve about a teaspoon of the egg mixture for glazing purposes later on – place in the refrigerator, covered, until ready to use). Add the vanilla extract to your flour/butter/egg mixture. Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients, and then use your fingertips. Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
  • Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.
  • Heat the oven to 350ºF [180ºC/gas mark 4].
  • Take the pasta frolla out of the fridge, if you want to reserve any for decoration refrigerate a little of it while you work on the tart base. To help roll the crostata dough, keep the dough on top of the plastic wrap that you had it wrapped in. This can help rolling the dough and can also help when transferring the dough to your pan. You can also use parchment paper for this. However, you can also roll the dough directly on a work surface if you prefer.
  • Lightly dust the top of the dough and your work surface (if you’re rolling directly on a work surface) with flour. Keep some flour handy to dust the dough as you go along.If the dough is very firm, start by pressing the dough with the rolling pin from the middle to each end, moving the rolling pin by a pin’s width each time; turn the dough 180 degrees and repeat; when it softens, start rolling. Roll the dough into a circle about 1/8th inch (3 mm) thick.
  • If you used the plastic wrap or parchment paper as rolling surface, flip dough over the pan, centering it, and delicately press it all around so the corners are well covered. Peel away the plastic wrap.
  • Trim the excess dough hanging over the edges of the pan. Press the remaining dough around the border into the sides of the pan making sure the border is an even thickness all the way around. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork in several places.
  • Fill the case with a square of baking parchment and baking beans to “bake blind”. Put the tart in the oven and bake for 30 minutes (or less if you are baking smaller ones). After 30 minutes, check the tart, and continue baking until the tart is of a nice golden hue.
  • When done, remove the tart from the oven and let cool. If you have used a tart pan with a removable bottom, then release the pastry base from the tart ring. Make sure the pastry case is completely cool before filling.

For The Pumpkin Pastry Cream

  • In a small saucepan, warm the milk gently until it is just steaming. Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, pumpkin, sugar, flour, spices and cornflour until the mixture is completely smooth.
  • Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly to the pumpkin mix. Add the milky pumpkin mixture back to the hot milk and carry on stirring and heating for a couple of minutes until it is very thick. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
  • If you wanted to bake the pastry cream you could put it in the cases after they’d been baked blind and give them a further 20 minutes in the oven. My preferred use of this cream was to chill it and pipe into the cases when completely chilled.

For The Quark Chocolate Mousse

  • Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, or the microwave. Allow to cool slightly but not set. Beat in the quark until smooth, allow to cool completely.

To Assemble:

  • Spread the quark chocolate mousse thickly onto the tart case base.
  • Spread or pipe chilled pumpkin pastry cream on top in a pattern of your choice - I used a star nozzle.
  • Re-chill and serve cold with single cream.