A crostata is an Italian baked tart or pie, also known as coppi in Naples and sfogliate in Lombardy. The earliest known use of crostata in its modern sense can be traced to the cookbooks Libro de Arte Coquinaria (Art of Cooking) by Martino da Como, published circa 1465, and Cuoco napolitano (Neapolitan recipes), published in the late 1400s containing a recipe (number 94) titled Crostata de Caso, Pane, etc..

A crostata is a “rustic free-form version of an open fruit tart” that may also be baked in a pie plate.

Historically, it also referred to an “open-faced sandwich or canapé” because of its crusted appearance, or a chewet, a type of meat pie.

The name derives from the Latin word crustāta, the feminine past participle of crustāre (to encrust), and ultimately from the noun crusta (crust). The French term croustade derives from it, from which the English term custard derives. The word crostata appeared in the earliest Italian dictionaries, included in the 1612 dictionary Vocabolario degli accademici della Crusca (compiled from 1591-1608) by the Accademia della Crusca and the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and the 1617 dictionary Il memoriale della lingua italiana: rido

Traditionally, a crostata consisted of a base, usually three layers, of friable dough “flavoured with clarified fat and butter”. Today, shortcrust pastry is used instead. It is differentiated from a torta by its filling: a crostata has an inconsistent chunky filling, whereas a torta has a consistent filling made of blended ingredients. There are “endless variations” of both sweet and savoury crostata, the sweet ones usually served as a dessert.

From wikipedia

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