Raspberry Chocolate Almond Crostata

The booklet that started it all....



Is anyone else highly susceptible to these inexpensive little packets of eye-candy?? Well I am. I think I have at least ten of them by now. This one caught my eye this week at the grocery store check out.

So paging through it later at home, I'm pleased to see that all of the recipes call for "few" and "real" ingredients. Not a bunch of name-brand, pre-prepared "stuff" like instant pudding and cans of pie filling. If fruit is called for, then it's real fruit. So that's a plus.

For my first use of this booklet I choose a recipe that looks and sounds KILLER: Raspberry Chocolate Almond Crostata.


Now I've never made a "crostata" before, but have seen them in other cookbooks and they are reportedly the easiest "pie" to make. No pie pans, no fluting the edges, no steam vents and no bubbling all over the bottom of the oven. It's a piece of flat dough that is then folded up and a little bit over whatever filling you're using, and baked. Simple enough.

I often like to follow a recipe exactly as written the first time I make it, but was feeling a little lazy, so when my husband and I stopped by the grocery store to pick up the ingredients that we don't already have on hand: some almond paste and jam, we also got a puff pastry pie shell. I *thought* that "puff pastry" and "pie shell" were basically the same thing. Oh I could see that the one was a bit "fluffier" than the other, but it was the only type they had that wasn't already in a pie tin and that's how the recipe described it so I thought, Why not? Turns out that they're not the same... but close enough I reckon... and such is life when you're too lazy to make your own! Unfortunately, being lazy has it's price. As we were leaving the grocery store I'm thinking, "Damn. This is already a $16 pie and I only needed three ingredients!" But to be honest, the pastry came in two parts and I only used one, and I still have a huge jar of raspberry jam leftover so it wasn't all that expensive, and the one fairly pricy item, the almond paste, is easy to make as I later learned when I looked it up in my trusty old "Joy of Cooking" cookbook. The ingredients are really only sugar and almonds. So, good to know for next time....

Here's the recipe (hope it's big enough or blow-uppable to see):


Simple, "real" ingredients:


...and pretty straightforward processes. Butter, almond paste and egg white in food processor:


Adding the melted chocolate...


And doesn't that look appetizing! Oh yeah, the crust. So I take it out of the package and let it thaw... but then I can't really work with it. It's square. I don't know how to make it round without trying to trim off the corners and paste them on around the edge? Whatever. I figure it'll be fine square.


Fold the crust over and add the raspberry jam... Forgot to take a photo with the almonds sprinkled on before putting it in the oven.


Moi? Licking the utensils?? Forensic evidence suggests, via dental records, that those *ARE* the teeth marks of the prime suspect ~


And out of the oven it comes ~ a little puffy but it settled down.


And finally, the taste test ~


To tell the truth, it was a bit much. Even that tiny piece. But I guess that figures. Just reading the ingredient list should have clued me to that! lol The jam made it just a little too sweet, and I didn't even use the powdered sugar on top. Am thinking it would be good as a filling for chocolate almond croissants ~ and I *do* still have half of that puff pastry left... :-)