The original recipe of the Grandma’s Cake
Grandma's cake is a traditional dessert, a great classic of pastry, which conquers the palate of adults and children thanks to its simplicity; a crunchy pastry shell, enriched by a delicious filling of custard and toasted pine nuts. There are two versions of this cake, one with a base of shortcrust pastry, a layer of cream and pine nuts with confectioner’s sugar, while the other is closed, and it is also the most common, with a shortcrust pastry lid that covers the cream filling, and with a garnish of pine nuts and confectioner’s sugar.
Instructions:
Start with the shortcrust pastry: pour the flour into a bowl and make a hole in the center where you will put the butter into small pieces (1), the sugar, the grated lemon peel, and then knead all the ingredients by hand.
Add the eggs (2) and continue to knead until a compact dough (3) is obtained.
Cover the dough with some film and put it in the refrigerator to harden for at least 1 hour.
Meanwhile, proceed with the custard: heat the milk with the lemon peel until it is almost brought to a boil, then remove the lemon peel and turn off the heat.
Work the eggs with the sugar (4), with the help of a whisk, and then add the sieved cornstarch (5). Once you have created a homogeneous cream, pour it into the milk (6) on a low flame and stir with a whisk.
Turn the heat back on and stir for 10/15 minutes until the cream has thickened. Let it cool before filling the cake.
Take the shortcrust pastry from the refrigerator and divide the dough into two parts. Roll out the two pastry dough with a rolling pin, on a floured surface. The first will serve you for the base of the cake, and it will have to cover a mold of 26 cm in diameter, while the other will serve to cover everything.
Once lined the mold with the pastry, try the bottom with the prongs of a fork (7) and roll out the custard (8).
Cover with the other pastry dough and seal the edges. Pour a handful of pine nuts on the surface and bake the cake at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes, in a static oven (9).
Remove the cake from the oven (10) when the pastry seems to be very colorful. Let it cool and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar (11).
Serve the grandma's cake cut into slices (12) but make sure it is not hot.
Tips
If you prefer, to flavor the custard, instead of lemon zest you can use the seeds of a vanilla bean, or a sachet of vanillin.
To add a touch of originality to your cake, you can add a layer of apricot jam on the shortcrust pastry base before spreading the custard.
A tasty idea would be to add some cherries to the filling made with custard.
If you have little time available, I suggest you to prepare the shortcrust pastry a few days before and freeze it.
To roll out the shortcrust pastry I suggest you use two sheets of parchment paper, place the dough in the center and pass it on with a rolling pin.
Variants
Grandma's cake without gluten
For those suffering from gluten intolerances, there is a version of the grandma's cake without flour. To make it, you have to replace the flour type 00 with the gluten-free one in the preparation of the shortcrust pastry. Gluten-free flours can be found in all supermarkets. Therefore, for the base use 300 grams of gluten-free flour, 120 grams of butter, 2 eggs, grated peel of a lemon, 100 grams of sugar. For custard you can use cornstarch instead of flour: take 500 ml of milk, 2 egg yolks, 1 egg, a lemon peel, 100 grams of sugar, and 40 grams of cornstarch.
