One morning I was at my mother-in-law’s house with my 2 y-o girl and her little cousin. Why don’t I entertain us by making a cake? – I thought. I didn’t have my beloved cookery tools available (wooden board, non-stick springform cake pans, cookie cutters, etc.), but it worked out fine! We made a smooth pasta frolla ball that we used to make a traditional Italian jam cake, a Crostata. We filled it with Mirabelle plum jam, homemade by my father, and the girls decorated it modelling tiny weird objects out of pasta frolla. The cake was so beautiful! Unfortunately, that time I did not take a picture of our cake (blogging wasn’t in my thoughts yet 🙂 ).
Today I will share my Pasta Frolla recipe, that I once found on the reverse side of a baking powder sachet. I like it because the proportion of butter/sugar is one of the “lightest” I have found!
Pasta Frolla Recipe
Pasta Frolla
A classic Italian cake base. Pasta frolla is a type of pastry (sweet shortcrust) used for the base of tarts, pies, biscuits or cookies.
Ingredients
- 300 g organic plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 100 g sugar
- 150 g good-quality unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
- 1 large free-range egg
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
Tools
- wooden pastry board
Directions
On a wooden board with a spoon mix together flour, sugar, baking powder and a pinch of salt (1).
Add the cubes of butter to the mixture (2) and work them by rubbing your thumbs against your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumb (3).
Add the egg to the mixture (4) and gently work it together until you have a soft, smooth and yellow ball of dough (5).
Tips
As soon as you have a smooth and yellow ball, stop working it. Don’t over knead the dough, otherwise the short crusty will become too hard, once baked.
If the dough needs more liquid, you can add a little bit of cold water.
And now, let’s use this perfect pasta frolla dough to make tartlets, a pie or biscuits. Have a look to the post A traditional Italian cake – Crostata, where I show you how to make a classic Italian jam cake, a Crostata, using a ball of pasta frolla. Enjoy!
CraftyMessyMom’s Maths Cookies
KIRFs: measuring and reading a scale, 3-digit numbers additions
- What is the weight of an egg? How much does a teaspoon of baking powder weight? And a pinch of salt?
- What is the total weight of the pasta frolla ball if I use all the ingredients in the recipe? Calculate and then check out your reply with the scale.
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Crafty Messy Mom 