Gluten Free Italian Chocolate Chip, Ricotta and Pear Crostata

This gluten free Italian chocolate chip, ricotta and pear crostata is all kinds of dreamy, creamy, delicious goodness… it will completely blow your mind.

This recipe has been sitting in drafts since forever! We actually enjoyed this tart for Carla’s 30th Birthday. Italian chocolate chip ricotta crostata for Birthday breakfast, YES PLEASE! 

Before we go on, crostata = pie. 

Usually, Carla makes her own birthday cake… she’s the baker in Team Merry. But lucky us, this year (2020)  I had the help of Damiano (who MerryBody members would know from the beautiful meditation music he composed for us, you can listen to it HERE).

And when I say ‘help’… really he made the whole thing and I assisted.

And when I say ‘assisted’… really I got a couple of ingredients ready, cleaned up and annoyed him by putting it all on Instagram and taste testing. Haha, he’s so lucky. 

We used a special Gluten Free flour for this recipe and it made amazing short crust pastry. 

It’s called Caputo and apparently, it’s the number one producer of “00” flour in Italy. Renowned for making epic pizza bases.

Anyway, it also makes great gluten free shortcrust pastry. It’s just quite expensive is all… at $20 per kilo (OMG, but well worth it). But if it’s out of your budget we’re sure any gluten free flour could work. Or just use regular ’00’ flour.

The combination of ricotta cheese, pear and chocolate are so good. You really must try!  It’s a long recipe but wow so worth it!

If you make this amazing gluten-free Italian chocolate chip, ricotta and pear crostata you just must send us a photo via Instagram, @themerrymakersisters! We’d love to see it!

Always merrymaking,

Emma (and Carla)

Gluten Free Italian Chocolate Chip and Ricotta Tart

Prep Time30 minutes
Servings: 10

STUFF YOU NEED

For the crust

  • 300 g gluten free flour we used cuputo brand
  • 2 eggs
  • 100 g castor sugar or monk fruit
  • 120 g butter softened

For the filling

  • 250 g ricotta cheese
  • 250 g mascarpone cheese
  • 80 g sugar or monk fruit
  • 1 egg yollk
  • 80 g chocolate chips

For the pears

  • 2 pears peeled and chopped into cubes
  • 300 ml water
  • 1 tbs. sugar or monk fruit

NOW WHAT

  • Start with the crust. In a mix master (or by hand) mix/knead the flour together with sugar, butter, egg and salt until a smooth dough forms.
  • Wrap it with some cling wrap and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  • Pre-heat oven to 180°C (355°F) and line your spring-form pan or pie pan (23 cm / 9 in).
  • Let's get the pears started. In a sauce pan add the water and sugar on medium heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
  • Add the pears and cook for about 10 minutes or until the pears are tender. Place the pears in a colander to drain, set aside and allow to cool.
  • Now, for the cheese filling. In a mix master whisk the ricotta cheese, mascarpone cheese, egg yolk and sugar/sweetener until smooth.
  • Add the choc chips and cooled pear and mix with a spatula. Set aside in the fridge.
  • Take the dough out of the fridge, place it on a sheet of baking paper and roll it to about 1.5 cm in thickness.
  • Put the dough into the greased/lined spring-form pan or pie pan and press it down across the base and edges of pan.
  • Cut the extra dough away and keep the trimmings to use as decoration.
  • Pour the cheese mixture into the crust and decorate with dough trimmings. We rolled ours out and cut long pieces to criss-cross on top.
  • Place into oven and bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown.
  • Allow to cool and serve. YUM!

MERRYMAKER TIP

To make this recipe a little easier you could skip the pears. Still delicious! Also, in this recipe we used proper sugar, feel free to swap to monk fruit sweetener. 

 

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