Pasticciotto Crema e Amarena

Most of our counter comes from Naples. This one comes from the far southeast of Italy, the Salento peninsula, where Lecce and the towns around it treat the pasticciotto as their own and bars put it out from early morning. It is recognized in Italy as a traditional regional food, which is a fancy way of saying people there would notice if you changed it.

Locals tell a story about a pastry maker in nearby Galatina who, short on ingredients, baked leftover custard inside leftover dough and sold the result. Nobody has proved it, and nobody has managed to disprove it either. The shortcrust family it belongs to, alongside other Italian pastries, is mapped in our Neapolitan pastry guide.

Custard on its own is gentle: vanilla, egg, sweetness, a soft set. Push an amarena cherry into the middle and you get a sharp, dark, sour-sweet note that cuts through the cream every few bites. It is the same pairing that fills our Cornetto Crema e Amarena, carried this time by a short, crumbly crust instead of a soft laminated one. In the morning, set it next to a cappuccino and the milk rounds off that sour edge.

Laminated pastries live on trapped steam and crisp layers, and both fade as the day goes on. Shortcrust has no layers to collapse. It is meant to be sandy and tender from the start, and a set custard sitting inside it does not go anywhere. So a pasticciotto bought after lunch is close to the one bought at opening, which makes it a sound choice for the Italian merenda, the mid-afternoon snack. It is also the pastry to buy for someone else: carried across town in a box, it arrives looking much the way it left.

Warm is optional. In Lecce it is often eaten warm, straight from the oven; it also holds up well at room temperature, and a few minutes in a low oven at home brings the warmth back.