Crostata with homemade Nutella – no butter, no eggs, no milk!

Crostata, tart, gallette. Three different ways to express the same concept: a flaky crumbly crust filled either with fruit jam or with a chocolate mousse and decorated on top with the same dough of the crust. Simply delicious, tremendously easy to prepare.

Crostata is the very traditional sweet that you usually prepare at home and serve for breakfast or for an afternoon snack to your kids: a slice of homemade crostata + a nice glass of milk.

Like tons of traditional recipes you can really play with the ingredients and prepare a traditional crostata, a lighter crostata, a vegan crostata….today I’m sharing with you my “light – allergy free” recipe without butter, without eggs and without milk. Compared to the traditional recipe, the crust is of course less buttery and more on the bread side. Thanks to the yogurt the crust is very soft.

As my little Luca is kind of addicted to Nutella (or anything that runs in the chocolate family…) I decided to fill my crostata with my homemade Nutella (always to stay on the healthy side!!!). You can always substitute the Nutella or chocolate spread with a fruit jam: strawberries, apricots, peaches…you name it!!

Let’s start from the ingredients:

How to proceed:

– in a medium bowl add all the ingredients starting from flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. On top of them add the sugar, the yogurt, the apple sauce and the zest of half lemon.

– start mixing all the ingredients with a fork or a spoon at first. You do not want all the wet ingredients to get attached to your hands 😉

– When you will see that the mix will start getting crumbly, you will continue kneading the dough with your hands in order to obtain a compact and smooth ball.

– Remove 1/3 of the dough and set it apart. We will need it for the final decoration. Take a tart baking pan and spread the dough on the base with your hands. You want the crostata base to be around 1/4 inch tick (5mm)

– spread on top of the crostata base a generous layer of homemade Nutella (click the link for the recipe!). The more…the better 😉

– It’s time to take the 1/3 of dough that we set apart at the beginning. Dust a flat surface with some flour (and your hands too..you will need it). and divide the dough in small balls.

– With your hands roll the small balls in order to obtain long cylindric stripes. The traditional recipe uses the roller pin to flatten the crostata base and the stripes, but I find easier to use my hands and I really like the homey look of the crostata once baked. In particular, as the dough is very soft, i like that the base and the stripes are irregular and bumpy.

– Final decoration: place the stripes on top of the Nutella layer creating a chessboard look.

– Few brushes of milk on the dough surface and a sprinkle of granulated sugar on top.

– The oven is preheated at 400F/ 200C. Bake the crostata for 30 minutes and let it cool down 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!!!