Strawberry and Fig Jam Crostate with Meyer Lemon Panna Cotta and Saba

Name: Strawberry and Fig Jam Crostate with Meyer Lemon Panna Cotta and Saba
Yield: serves 12
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons white sesame seeds; 1 1/2 cups unbleached pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting; 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar; 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes; 1/4 teaspoon Italian leavening, such as Bench Mate, Pane Angel, or Rebecchi, or 1/8 teaspoon baking soda and 1/8 teaspoon baking powder; Pinch of kosher salt; 4 extra-large egg yolks; 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (only if not using Italian leavening); 1 cup halved dried figs, stems removed and discarded; 1 cup dried strawberries; 1/3 cup granulated sugar; Peeled zest strips of 1 lemon (peeled using a vegetable peeler); 1 whole vanilla bean; 3/4 cup strained fresh Meyer lemon juice or conventional lemon juice; 1 tablespoon granulated unflavored gelatin; Unflavored nonstick cooking spray; 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons heavy whipping cream; 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar; Pinch of kosher salt; 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk; Grated zest of 1 Meyer lemon; Saba or aged balsamico condimento, for drizzling

January 26, 2012

It’s impossible to walk into any bakery in Italy without seeing a lattice-covered jam-filled tart called a crostata, so when I penciled out a short list of the desserts I would want to make at Mozza, it was only natural that crostata was on that list. For the longest time, I just couldn’t decide how I wanted to serve it. An unadorned crostata seemed fine for a bakery, but it looked too naked on the plate to serve alone at the Pizzeria. At the same time, I was struggling with how to incorporate another Italian favorite, panna cotta, into our repertoire. Somehow, in the course of all of my experimenting, I got the idea to substitute the creaminess of gelato, the most obvious accompaniment to a fruit tart, with the creaminess of panna cotta, and I put the crostata and panna cotta together. It worked, solving both problems at the same time. We drizzle the panna cotta with saba, Sardinian grape must. What we created was a dessert built of all Italian elements that, though you would never see them together in Italy, somehow work. I’m proud of that. The recipe makes twelve crostate, four more than you will serve with the panna cotta. I based the yield on the number of crostate the dough would make—and I figured you could find someone to eat the extras. You will need twelve 1/2-cup miniature brioche molds to make the panna cotta, though you could use 2-ounce ramekins—your panna cotta will taste just as good, it just won’t look as pretty. The crostata dough is the same as the Pasta Frolla (page 276) with toasted sesame seeds added. Dahlia and I got the idea when she was working on a sesame-seed biscotti. We didn’t like the biscotti enough to include them in our repertoire, but we really liked the subtle flavor and crunch that the seeds added to the dough.

Recipe notes