The secret Pasta Frolla Pastry Recipe from Tuscany – Delicious Shortbread Recipe
Pasta Frolla or shortcrust pastry or shortbread pastry is a crumbly pastry baked in the oven, generally prepared with flour, eggs, sugar, butter, salt and flavored with lemon zest or vanilla. Particularly great for pies and delicious shortbread biscuits, shortcrust pastry derives its name from its friability, which makes it able to melt in the mouth without being neither hard nor elastic.
The origins of Italian Pasta Frolla
The Pasta Frolla recipe has ancient origins. It seems that a very similar pasta was already known in Venice around the year 1000, when sugar cane was imported from Egypt and Syria began to be used. Probably the first codified recipe dates back to the 14th century, inserted by Taillevent in his manuscript “Le Viandier”.
But it was only towards the end of the seventeenth century that it began to receive great attention, following the book “Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi, mastro dell’arte del cucinare, divisa in sei libri”, where Bartolomeo Scappi speaks about the theme “shortcrust pastry” in the fifth chapter, dedicated exclusively to pies, cakes and various desserts.
There are really many different versions on how making the pastry for the pasta frolla, and this is the secret recipe of my grandmother Nonna Nada for a wonderful and unique Pasta Frolla or Shortbread pastry. I think the best recipe for shortcrust pastry.
As you know, you can use the Pasta Frolla to prepare a countless number of different cakes, tarts and biscuits, so any type of cake you’re going to make the most important thing is the very good quality of your paste.
Ingredients for the Pasta Frolla pastry
Serves 4-6
250 gr of white flour ( better 200 gr of flour and 50 gr of potato starch)
125 gr of butter (not melted)
110 gr of sugar
2 yolks
1 spoon of water
1 spoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 pinch of salt
1 grated lemon
How to make the Pasta Frolla
Melt all quickly in a bowl making a ball, put the pasta in the fridge and let it rest, the more the better; it preserves also for some days.
Then roll out the Pasta Frolla and fill it with whatever you prefer: chocolate, marmalade, cream. Put in the oven at about 180 degrees for half an hour. Gorgeous! The smell is incredible 🙂
