Susan Jung’s recipe for cherry crostata – great barbecue fare

There are many types of crostata, an Italian fruit tart. This free-form version is rustic and relaxed – a dessert to serve at a barbecue or a picnic. It’s also good when made with small, dense purple plums in place of black cherries.

Black cherry crostata with cream cheese pastry and brown butter streusel

This is a great dessert to make if you’re not skilled at rolling out pastry dough. It’s a free-form tart and, if you can’t roll the dough into a rough circle, you can make it into a rectangle, an oval or whatever shape the dough decides to take. Just tell your guests you made it that shape intentionally.

The dough is adapted from a recipe in The Pie and Pastry Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It makes enough for two crostata; the leftover dough keeps for about a week in the fridge or several months in the freezer. The streusel recipe makes far more than you’ll need for this crostata, but it keeps for months if stored in an airtight container in the freezer; you can use it to top cakes, pies and pastry.

For the dough:
370 grams plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for rolling
¼ tsp fine sea salt
¼ tsp baking powder
170 grams cream cheese, chilled
225 grams unsalted butter, chilled
40ml ice water
15ml cider vinegar or rice vinegar

For the streusel:
80 grams butter
140 grams plain (all-purpose) flour
75 grams muscovado sugar
¼ tsp fine sea salt