If Tomate Pie is Utica, NY’s favorite entrée, then pusties are its superstar dessert.
Pusties (aka, pasticciotti) are little pastry tarts filled with custard and baked in a unique fluted tin. It’s a culinary jewel that is maddeningly difficult to find outside of upstate New York. It’s also maddeningly difficult to make at home—which may explain why 87% of all outbound flights from Syracuse Airport contain at least one box of pusties in the overhead bin.
I made up that last statistic, but wouldn’t be shocked if it were true.
You’re probably asking yourself, “What could be so hard about making a custard-filled pastry tart?” Well…several things.
First, the equipment. To make pusties, you need pustie tins. And you won’t find pustie tins in any Walmart.
Then, you need a good recipe. This is no small task. Most people that live in Utica don’t make pusties, because it’s easier to buy them at a local bakery. And most people outside of Utica don’t make pusties because…well, they’ve never heard of them. Much like the Amish, pustie culture tends not to venture far from the ol’ homestead. So finding a decent recipe (i.e., one whose dough doesn’t crumble like a sand castle when touched with a rolling pin) involves either raiding somebody’s grandma’s file cabinet or playing Internet Russian Roulette.
Even with a good recipe in hand, the pustie-making process is laborious, time-consuming, and temperamental. Making the dough, making the custard, lining each tin with dough, filling each tin with custard, capping each tin with another layer of dough—it’s a multi-hour marathon, and that’s *with* helpers.
Then there’s the baking. This is the most frustrating part. Why? Because the top of the pusty is exposed to the oven’s heat…whereas the bottom and sides are shielded by the tin. This means, all too often, that your beautiful pustie—whose top looked so crisp and golden brown when you pulled it from the oven—emerges from the tin a doughy, undercooked tragedy.
Yet all these downsides pale in comparison to a pustie-celibate life. So my wife and I sacrificed many hours and hundreds of calories on a Quixotic quest to crack the pustie code.
And we think we’ve finally cracked it. The recipe is set forth below. If it kills your entire weekend, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
THE DOUGH
6 c All Purpose Flour
1 t Baking Powder
1 c Lard (broken, cut, or shaved into small pieces)
1 stick (i.e., ½ c) Unsalted Butter (broken, cut, or shaved into small pieces)
2/3 c Light or Dark Brown Sugar
2/3 cup Sugar
¼ c Honey
2 Eggs
½ c Water
STEP 1: In a large bowl, add baking powder, lard, butter, and 3 cups flour.
STEP 2: Mix together with your hands, as you would a pie crust.
STEP 3: Add sugars and mix further.
STEP 4: In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, water, and honey. Beat well.
STEP 5: Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients (i.e., the bowl containing the flour, baking powder, lard, and butter). Pour the egg mixture into the center and mix well with hands.
STEP 6: Continue adding flour ½ cup at a time and mix well until your reach the perfect consistency (i.e., not to sticky, yet not too dry/crumbly). You may or may not need all 6 cups of flour.
STEP 7: Knead for a few minutes, cover bowl with plastic wrap, and let rest in refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.
NOTE: This makes enough dough for forty (40) pusties (assuming 3.5 inch diameter pusty tin).
THE CUSTARD
(IN THIS CASE, VANILLA)
2 c Whole Milk
1 c Heavy Cream
3 Large Eggs
2/3 c Sugar
3 T Cornstarch
2 t Vanilla Extract
¼ t Nutmeg (freshly grated)
⅛ t Table Salt
STEP 1: Heat milk and cream in medium saucepan over medium-low heat until steaming. Be careful not to let it boil, or you’ll have a mess on your hands.
STEP 2: Whisk together eggs, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, nutmeg, and salt in bowl.
STEP 3: Whisk steaming milk and cream into egg and cornstarch mixture in slow, steady stream.
STEP 4: Return egg and milk mixture to saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with wooden spoon and scraping bottom of pan.
STEP 5: When custard begins to thicken and clump at the bottom of the saucepan, toss aside the wooden spoon and grab a whisk. Continue whisking the custard (breaking up the clumps at the bottom of the pan) until it thickens to the point that the whisk leaves a “trail” in the custard. Or, stated another way, keep whisking until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and you can draw a line through it with your finger. Be careful not to over-thicken.
STEP 6: Remove from heat, pour into a bowl or Cambro, and cool to room temperature.
NOTE: This will make enough custard for ten (10) pusties.
CUSTARD VARIATIONS
- For chocolate custard, add ½ c cocao powder at Step 2 and omit nutmeg. Full disclosure: My father commented that he would like a bit more sugar in the chocolate custard.
- For dark chocolate custard, add ½ c dark cocao powder at Step 2 and omit nutmeg.
- For coconut pusties, just stir in a generous hand full of coconut at Step 6. Duh!
- For almond custard, add 2 t almond extract at Step 2 and omit vanilla extract.
- For lemon custard, add 1.5 T fresh lemon juice and 1.5 T grated lemon zest at Step 2 and omit nutmeg.
- For orange custard, add 1.5 T fresh orange juice and 1.5 T grated orange zest at Step 2 and omit nutmeg.
- For ketchup custard, add ½ c ketchup at Step 2 and omit nutmeg. Just kidding, sort of. Don’t be afraid to let your creativity fly. The pustie possibilities are endless…and man does not live on vanilla alone!
THE ASSEMBLY
Pustie Tins (you can buy these online from Flihan’s)
Pizza or Baking Stone
Rolling pin
Nonstick Spray (e.g., Pam)
Flour (for dusting work surface)
Egg yolks (beaten)
Pastry brush
Sugar (for sprinkling)
STEP 1: Place pizza stone on middle rack. Heat oven (and stone) at 500F for one hour. Seriously, let that stone heat for the full hour.
STEP 2: Meanwhile (as oven and stone are heating), spray pusty tins with non-stick spray. Do not flour the pustie tin, or my Uncle Sammy will kill you.
STEP 3: Break off little “meatball” of dough. On a lightly floured surface, use rolling pin to roll out dough into a thin round of 1/4 inch thickness. #ProTip: Alternatively, you can roll out a larger sheet of dough and cut out circles using a glass or bowl of the correct diameter (this method is faster than the meatball method, FWIW).
STEP 4: Place rolled-out dough round into pusty tin. Use thumbs to press dough into bottom and sides of the tin. Remove excess, overhanging dough.
STEP 5: Fill pustie with custard of choice. #ProTip: Don’t overfill it! Leave a half inch or so of breathing room. Both the custard and the dough will plump in the oven, so overfilling will cause the lid (described in Step 6 below) to crack and/or separate from the base. That said…#ProTip: Don’t underfill it either–or your guests will feel cheated. (This is a persnickety recipe. This is one of a thousand ways to screw it up.)
STEP 6: Roll out another little “meatball” of dough into a thin round. This will be the pustie’s “lid.” Cover pustie top with lid of dough, crimp with fingers to seal, and remove excess, overhanging dough. #ProTip: Brush the rim of the pastie with water before topping with and crimping the lid. This will help keep the lid from blowing open–yet another way to screw up this persnickety recipe. My grandmother (i.e., “Nonnie“) would place a little “button” of dough in the center of each vanilla pustie’s lid, so that we could distinguish the vanilla ones from the chocolate. Kids today would call that a “life hack.”
STEP 7: Brush top of pustie with beaten egg and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Then, using a paring knife, poke a couple small slashes into the pustie’s lid so that steam can escape during baking.
STEP 8: Repeat Steps 3 through 7 until you’ve prepared enough pusties to fill a baking pan.
STEP 9: When you’re ready to rock, lower the oven temperature to 450F and turn on the convection fan (assuming you have a convection oven).
STEP 10: Cover baking pan full of pusties with aluminum foil and place directly onto heated baking stone. #ProTip: Spray the underside of the foil with Pam before covering pusties, otherwise it may stick to the lids–another of the thousand ways to screw up this persnickety recipe. Bake for approximately 5 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes (#ProTip: Rotate the sheet 180 degrees after 10 minutes to ensure even browning), until the sides and bottoms of the pusties are golden brown. Listen to me, people! There’s nothing worse than a doughy, undercooked pustie. Well, actually…a hot dog baked into a chocolate brownie is worse. But you catch my drift. A lot of people screw up perfectly good pusties by removing them from the oven too soon. We know this from experience. You can’t judge a pustie’s doneness by the color of the lid. The lid will brown well before the bottom and sides, so don’t freak out. Those pusties need to stay in the oven until the bottom and sides are browned.
STEP 11: Let cool and remove from tins. Because, you know…you can’t eat the tins.
As with all recipes on this website, this one will be subject to a continuous improvement process. We’ll continue tinkering with this recipe until it becomes 100% idiot-proof. Updates to the original post will be identified below.
We’d welcome critiques or suggestions for improvement from you, as well.
#CrowdSourcing Question (December 23, 2021): Is the singular form of pusties (a) “pustie,” or (b) “pusty?” Any Utica grandmothers out there with an opinion on this life or death question? I hope the answer is (a), or I’ll have a lot of editing to do here.
Look yummy, which flavor did you make besides vanilla and chocolate?
We made vanilla, chocolate, and dark chocolate. At that point, we were out of custard but still had enough dough for ten more pusties. So we filled the remainder with blueberry pie filling. We’re not proud of that (nor would Nonnie be proud of our decision), but it seemed better than wasting perfectly good dough.
Does anyone ship pusties out of state
I can confirm that Florentine does not ship its pusties. I asked–and practically begged–them last month. That rejection was the motivation behind this blog post.
Caruso bakery ships pusties. I used to live in Rome, NY and really missed having rhese
Florentine Pastry Shop also ships.
Utica Specialty Foods by Susie
Utican whom moved to central Florida and sells AUTHENTIC Utica foods in a Italian market in Orlando and ships from Deltona (also has pick-up in Deltona)
Can find on Facebook
Listen up peoples! An important PSA. #FloridaManicotti
Caruso’s in Utica!
For a very large fee, we’ll ship ours. 😉
I grew up on these yummy desserts. I am anxious to try them at home. Thanks!
I am formerly from Utica, NY and prior to leaving and moving to Melbiurne, Fl, I purchased pustie tins and I make them often. I use chocolate cooked pudding. Before I shared them with my neighbor’s, no one had any idea of what I was talking about when I said I was going to make them. Now my neighbor’s can’t wait until I make them again. We are going to have a community yard sale and I always have a bake sale and this sale I am going to sell my chocolate Pusties, we will see if they sell? Lol.
They will sell like Italian hotcakes, for sure.
Hi Sal,
How much do you think is a good price to sell the pasties for?
Small? Large?
I
i lived in Utica my friend loves these wh2at dough recipe did you use i bought the tins just have to find the best dough recipe could you email your recipe to me diane1107 @yahoo.com. i live in Barefoot Bay Fl
Hi, Diane:
The dough recipe is clearly laid out in the blog post. Just copy/paste it into an email and send.
It is battle-tested, so fear not. It works.
Sal
Hey Fat Sal,
The Pie Diva is intent on making Pusties. What is the diameter and depth of your Pustie tins?
Boney Dog
p.s. I saw a job opportunity with Dos Equis you may want to pursue.
B.Dog:
I use the 3.5″ diameter tins. Depth is 1.25″. They are the ones to which I linked on my blog post: http://njflihanco.com/3-5/P1005_1005/
Regarding the job opening, I am growing my beard as I type these words.
I laughed, I cried, while reading this and the Tomato Pie post! This is amazing, thank you! My husband & I are both from Utica. We’ve been “muleing” Pusties like drug dealers back to wherever our home of the time was since 1977! Still doing it for our son in Baltimore when we come to Utica to visit family.
BTW – my father-in-law (and before him his dad) used to own a meat market on Bleecker St. How we miss the special treats he would cut for us!
Thanks for your efforts!!
I was your father-in-laws neighbor.I make the pusties and bought all my
meat from Frank. Those were the good old days.
Hi Erminie, Iole Vitullo was my grand mother-in-law…and her brother Gabrielle ran “The Florentine”…did you work with them?
Hello! I worked at Florentine for 8 years while in high school and college! Our family was good friends with the Vitullo’s and Allessandroni’s. I loved working there! Great people!
Florentine is the best of the best of the best in the pusty world. It is always the first stop after landing at Syracuse airport. I have always wondered how they make pusties every morning, because they are a royal pain to make.
made pusties for the first time and found Mary Ann Exposito’s recipes and you don’t have to put any thing on the tins because the dough has enough lard and its doesn’t over grease the dough and it was fabulous.I have a friend who put lard on the tins I found that it was an over kill and a unnecessary step, so all you have to do is squeeze the tins ever so slightly and they just pop out! You can see my pusties,tamales etc on Lydia trevino mas slattery thanks. My boyfriend is an ex-fireman from Utica,Norman Ardo I’ve learned a lot from the cook book “A taste of Utica and I love it! thanks for you time, Lydia Slattery
We at Caruso Pastry Shop ship “pusties” for a reasonable shipping fee!!! (315)735-9712….just give us a call
Thanks, Carm! I’ll stop by for some when I’m in town next year for the Boilermaker.
Will someone please overnight me some of these things? I’ve never heard of them before, but I am seriously intrigued. I’m legit serious. If you think they can survive shipping, how much? Lol. I’m from Long Island, NY originally. I miss NY. I’m in FL now.
Caruso’s pastry shop in Utica ships pusties! Call them at (315)735-9712.
Close but not quite. I have my Grammas original recipe, and i am 60. Im from Rome NY and pasties along with tomato pies were sold at all the corner stores for us to enjoy at lunch from school. They no longer are made this way in Utica or Rome…they have been imitated by pasyry shops in Rome n Utica but they it is Not the original recipe.
Ok, then…share Gramma’s recipe with the rest of us.
I’m also from Utica. I live in southern California. Each time I returned back home, my 1st stop was Florentine Pastry Shop to buy pusties. Chocolates are my is my favorite. I have bought them from Caruso’s and Cafe CaNole. Once a putie, always a pustie. To me, the taste is the same. I’m pretty sure it’s the dough and the cream (filling). I have close to 60 pustie tins my self (from Flihan’s). With our five children and five grandchildren we have always spent the holiday season making pusties for Christmas. It’s a family thing. My wife and one daughter prefers lemon. My other daughter and three sons go for the chocolate. My grandkids like both flavors so i will mix half choc and half lemon. Now that I’m retired, I make pusties several times a year. Pusties are year-round. Our daughter-in-laws like lemon and chocolate also. Now that we have another grandchild, we will be teaching him the recipe for pusties once he is ready for the kitchem. I agree with other people that making pusties is time consuming, but it sure is worth it, worth the wait. When it pustie weekend, get ready for six to seven dozen and more. Our children can each take a dozen home. I think the time spent making pusties is well worth it.
Thanks, Frank. I totally agree…pusties are a ton of work, but worth it. Eating my grandmother’s is one of my fondest childhood memories. You are creating the same memories for yours.
I loved reading this! I am a Utica girl here. Live in Rochester but my father still lives in Utica and always has some treats for me on the holidays. My grandma use to make these on the holidays and I always knew they were a labor of love. I am going to attempt to make these this year. I would love to make a large batch and I’m curious if anyone has froze them? I am wondering I freezing them would make them a soggy disaster!
I have frozen pusties before. They get a little soggy, but I’ve found that you can pop them in a muffin tin In the oven to warm them and it removes the sogginess.
We do the same, although not in the tin. A crisp pusty is a superior pusty. Thank you for commenting!
Peace, love, and Tomato Pie,
Sal
Hey Sal, How long does it take for your custard to thicken up? I’m staring for 30 minutes and it’s still not thick… Can I up the temperature? (Using an all-clad sauce pan on electric stove top setting number 3)
*stirring
Hey, Tammy. 6-8 minutes on medium-low heat usually does it for me. It’s been awhile since I’ve made this recipe, admittedly. You can up the temps, just be sure to stir constantly so you don’t scorch the bottom. You can also cheat by adding some corn starch if all else fails.
Sal
Im formally from Utica, I found the tins at Bed Bath and Beyond, made some from your recipe last year and they came out great, going to be making more this year. I have a cousin in Utica that makes them every year also.
Thanks Sal.
I will be trying. I have 9 children so we will be very busy. Have a Blessed day. ?
FYI…They freeze very well. I do it each yr when I go north. They stay for quite a while.
I will have to give the recipe a try.
I attended MVCC. Worked at Tony’s on the corner of Mohawk and South. They had some of the best pizza in Utica. Are they still there? I think their last name was Mazotti. I lived just off James St. I used to walk to the corner store and buy pustie, where I first discovered them. I think that was about the last time that I say them until about a month ago. I was in Naples FL and visited a specialty food place that wasn’t particularly Italian but at the hot food counter, they had some sauce on their pie that had an aroma which almost made me faint when the took it out of the oven. Wandering over to the bakery, I spotted what looked to be a pustie. I don’t know that I’ve ever even seen them in Little Italy or the Bronx. Love them, tho and always wished that I knew how to make them.
I use to eat there every week
Love pusties and you can count me as one of those that packs a bag full of goodies every time I return home to Florida from Utica! We loved pusties growing up and I can remember my Mom working on the recipe until she perfected it. She’d make them ahead of every Easter and freeze them. Awesome! She’s 91 now so she doesn’t make them any more but we have her recipe 🙂 ps…that travel box I fill also includes cannoli’s and half moons…nothing like them in Florida that’s for sure!
If your grandmother has a secret for keeping the lids from popping-off while baking, I’d love to hear it.
I have made this recipe a few times with amazing success. I tweak the filling a little bit, but I dare you to find a recipe that I don’t tweak to my own liking at some point. After I tried this recipe for the first time, I asked my mother to bring me some from Utica (I think they were from Caruso), and the ones I made were sooooooo much better. Anyone wanting to give this recipe a shot, I can verify that this is a fantastic recipe, and this is coming from someone with lots of experience, looking to open my own cafe/bakery in the near future. As for the lids, I roll the dough out with a rolling pin, line my tins, fill, and then roll out the top piece. When I put the top on, I dip my finger in a big of water and run it around the upper edge of the bottom piece, put the tops on, and actually press down around the edges of the tin which both seals and trims the edges. I’ve never had a problem with tops coming off. Thank you so much for this recipe!!!! I use your tomato pie recipe too better than any I’ve ever had!
Thank you, Keri! And, especially, thanks for the tip on wetting the edge of the bottom piece before pressing on the lid. That had not occurred to me. I will absolutely try this, because those damn lids popping off make me crazy. Good luck with your future bakery. The world will be a better place with more pusties and tomato pie in it.
Sweet Temptations by Pauline, Inc. Whitesboro, NY Makes Pusties in Chocolate, Vanilla, Pistachio, Butterscotch, Chocolate-PeanutButter, Lemon, Blueberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Pumpkin and Apple Pie.
Call 315-941-3675 to Order
This is amazing! Two of my former neighbors are in this thread! The Fucci’s and the Scaramuzzino’s. I’m a Ferro on Clementian St.
I send a dozen to my son at least during the cooler months. I’m afraid to send during the heat of summer.
I already have the tins. Time to give the recipe a try. Thanks for posting.
I grew up down the street from Rosato’s bakery….dad used to take us there every Sunday cuz he knew the original owners. NOTHING like their pusties since then, in my opinion! They had the most wonderfully soft crusts and filled oh, so nicely with chocolate or vanilla filling. The SMELL of all they were baking was wonderful! We got to see them making their frosting in huge industrial looking electric bowls & mixers….and have those nice, soft & tasty chocolate “meatball” cookies…mmm!
Hi I’m from South Florida and they don’t sell them at my local Italian Bakery. I had a chocolate one from Connecticut at the Sorelle Society street fair I believe was in August of this year My daughter bought a half dozen and froze them. When we visited in September she defrosted them and they were delicious. I have to get the pans to try to make them. I just wish I could buy them here. !!!
Great advice on the lids – thanks for that! And yes, this recipe seems to be pretty, pretty, pretty good. 🙂
My husband is from Utica. My know the Florintine Bakery well.
We here can I,purchase the Pustie tins?
Yes! You can buy pustie tins from NJ Flihan. Their website and on-line store is at http://njflihanco.com/search.phphttp://njflihanco.com/search.php Search on the word “pustie” and you’ll find a variety of sizes. If you live near Utica and want to avoid shipping charges, you can buy directly from their Bleeker Street location.
I make pusties all the time. My daughter wants me to make cannoli filled. Im not sure if i would bake shells, tops separately. Cool,fill top or bake with filling. Any ideas?
Hey, Doreen. You could try an experiment. Bake one small test batch pre-filled. I’d imagine that the filling will liquify in the oven, so the question is whether it will set properly when it cools. Maybe! Test batch #2,try capping the pustie unfilled, poke a fair sized hole in the center of the lid, bake, cool, and then pipe-in the filling. Not sure if the lid will collapse during baking (thus making piping impossible), but it’s worth a try. Test batch #3, bake pusties unfilled and uncapped. Bake the lids separately. Add the filling after pustie shells and lids have cooled, then carefully place the baked lid on top. The diameter of the lid would obviously be a bit smaller than the diameter of the pustie shell chamber, but that’s totally Ok. At least one of the three experiments should work. If #1 works, it would be easiest (process-wise). Worst case scenario, I am supremely confident that #3 should work–you’ll just need to tinker with the baking time (which should be much shorter than baking a filled pustie) and pray that you don’t break the lid before it is in place (try baking the lids on parchment paper, which will make it easier to lift from the pan with a spatula without breaking it). Let us know the outcome.
II was feeling nostalgic for Utica and the central NY area. I now live in Virginia so a trip to get pusties is rather out of the question. I was thrilled to find your recipe and detailed instructions. I made them yesterday and, yes, it is time consuming but totally worthwhile. I made the dough a day prior to assembling them. I was surprised at how easy the dough was to work with…and how tasty it is. The pusties are absolutely wonderful and just like I remembered them.
Thank you for posting this. Next…I would love to tackle the rum cake from the Florentine Pastry Shop.
Any chance of getting that recipe posted??
Hey, Goldie! Thanks for the affirmation. Did you have any trouble keeping the lids from popping off the pusties? That always seems to be the only problem that I have with this recipe. Sorry, but I haven’t tried to replicate Florentine’s rum cake. But I do recommend drinking a glass of rum and thinking wistfully about cake. It’s a good Plan B.
Has anyone tried the recipe for rum cake from the cookbook “A Taste of Utica”? The face of The Florentine was Iole Alessandroni Vitullo (Gabrielle’s sister) and she was our “Grandma Iole”. I can’t remember if my MIL Lillian Vitullo Mazzotta made her own Rum Cake or got it from the store but if any relative does have a recipe I’ll share it when I find out!
Utica born and raised. Living in Ohio now. Thank you for posting this recipe! Just tried them and they came out great. I used the water on the edge trick and the lids were fine. The only modification I used was to bake them uncovered for the first 15 min and THEN cover with foil so the tops didn’t burn. I think that helps the lids stay on as it allows the initial steam to vent better. Well done, Sal!
Awesome, Bob. Thanks for the message. I will try your modification the next time we make them.
I read somewhere if you brush the edges with a bit of egg wash before you press the tops on firmly,(and of course brush the tops with a bit more egg wash), this will prevent the tops from popping off. I haven’t made them yet, but its in the plans. Yes, I too am from Utica and really miss the food. (Now living in Frederick Md.) Luckily I have lots of relatives to visit when I need a New York fix.
Pasticciotti is in pretty much any italian bakery in CT around the New Haven/shoreline area if you are travelling and need a fix. My favorite. Grew up eating them.
Pusties are the best. If you don’t live in Utica, NY then the best pastries you will not be enjoying the pastries of a life time. Pusties are a traditional thing with my family and I make them every year. It’s a Christmas thing and time for pusties. I wish I still lived in Utica and not California then I could just head down to Florentine, Caroso’s or Cafe Canole for pusties. I have over 50 pustie trays my self and our kids will make them with me during the holidays. I am following a family tradition that’s been happening for over 50 years since my grandparents passed away. This is how we carry on family traditions. It’s so important to carry on our Italian traditions to carry on what we learned from our families and grandparents. It’s the memories that we cherish and give a remembrance to our past. My memories are growing up in East Utica and having those enjoyable memories. Thyose were the best cooking and memorable times of growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s.
I can confirm Pat and Suzanne’s comments: Pasticciotti are very common along the Connecticut shoreline. Why might Utica and New Haven share this special pastry? My family history research shows New Haven, Waterbury, and the cities of upstate New York were common destinations for immigrants from the “Terra di Lavoro” (roughly, the modern province of Caserta, Campania). These are the fertile lands north and west of Napoli (Naples). My own family had cousins who came to Syracuse in the 1880s before settling in Connecticut. In my father’s family, we do not call them “pusties” but “pah-stee-chya.”
In New Haven, some good pastry shops are Rocco’s on Ferry Street, and Lucibello’s in Wooster Square. As a child of the 1990s/ 2000s in the suburbs of Bridgeport, I also remember these pastries at my local bakeries (Del Prete’s on Main Street). At university in Boston, I also found pasticciotti at Maria’s Pastry Shop in the North End (Cross Street).
There seem to be two main varieties of pasticciotti. “Torta Pasticciotto” (pasticciotto is singular form of the word, but who eats only one?) is the Neapolitan variety that we are mostly familiar with. They are baked in a round tin. A variation includes amarena cherries on the inside, atop the pastry cream. I have not seen these in the United States. The other main variety is Pasticciotto Leccese, which are baked in oblong/ oval tins. The Leccese version is more common in its native Apulia (Puglia) region.
Hi Sal & the pasticcotti-eating community,
This weekend, I tried Sal’s recipe. Here are my notes which hopefully helps future bakers. You can see photographs of the outcome here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WoosterStreetCooks/permalink/1118607998344734/
***
The dough:
While preparing to make this recipe, I learned that lard is not readily available at the supermarket. I made a special trip to New York City’s Union Square Greenmarket on a Saturday morning and picked up a container of pork backfat lard from a boar farmer’s stand. I would have preferred leaf lard, but this worked perfectly without a hitch.
Instead of all-purpose flour, I used Anna’s Unbleached “Tipo 00” extra fine flour in the red package.
I was able to make 35 pasticciotti from Sal’s recipe. He suggested it makes 40 pastries.
***
The cream:
I used four large eggs instead of three. My eggs were labeled “Large” but to me that I just a normal sized egg. I did not have “Extra Large” eggs. I also added the additional egg because I like a firmer custard.
I made three creams which I expected to fill 30 pastries, per the recipe. However, after I ran out of dough (35 pastries), I still could have filled another 15 – 25 pastries. This is based on my judgment not to over-fill the centers so the lids will not pop. At the end of this project, I had a lot of custard leftover.
1) I followed Sal’s recipe for vanilla custard to a tea, except that I used Vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract and added a splash of fresh lemon juice. I think I used 1 tsp. I think the Vanilla flavor was overpowering. I was also not impressed with the texture, which was a bit too “globby” or creamy on the tongue. I think more sugar may have helped.
2) The texture of my chocolate cream was more to my liking. I saw Sal’s note that his father would have preferred more sugar, so I added an extra 2/3 cup of granulated sugar. I also added cinnamon to this custard cream, which I think adds dimension to the flavor profile. I used Nestle Toll House Cocoa powder.
3) I experimented by making a Strega Liquor custard cream. Strega is an herbal liquor produced in Benevento, Italy. It contains 70 international ingredients, including the locally available Samnite mint. Along with the liquor, I added some home-made lemon syrup/marmalade. I’m not sure what to call it. It was a byproduct of my home-made limoncello and I do not have exact measurements. I gave this cream a generous splash of lemon juice.
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Baking:
I used Honey-Can-Do’s Old Stone Oven brand pizza stone. I have an apartment sized oven, and the 16″ circular stone. My apartment oven has no pre-heated indicator light and does not have a window on the door for me to watch how the pastries were progressing. I used a two-pronged carving fork to poke holes in the top of the pastries.
Batch #1 consisted of 12 vanilla filled pasticciotti. I found they came out of the oven quite dark, even on the sides and bottom of the pastry. They baked while situated in black enamel roasting pans. I think the high walls and dark color of the pan led to the scorching. When the pastries were cut open, the side walls were visibly dry. Like Sal suggested, for this batch I warmed the pizza stone for one hour at 500° F, and then dialed back to 450° F upon transferring the pastries to the oven. I did not employ the trick with water to prevent the lids from popping, and yes, the lids popped on most pastries in the batch.
Batch #2 (12 chocolate pasticciotti) was rolled out and formed in the tins while the oven was off, but the pizza stone was still cooling from the prior batch. When these pastries entered the oven, I restarted the oven at 450° F. I did not pre-heat at 500°F before this batch. Instead of using the enameled pans, I situated the pastries on a flat, silver-colored sheet pan. I also kept aluminum foil over the pastries for seven minutes instead of five minutes. The result was near perfect. The center of the lids and the sides of the pastry in direct contact with the tin were light in color, yet crisp. The buttons and edges of the lid were a golden to dark brown color, dependent on where they were placed in the oven. I used the trick to prevent the lids from popping, and, in fact, none popped open! In addition to sealing the lid with wet fingers, I also pushed my finger down vertically in each flute of the pastry tin to compress the two pieces of dough together.
Batch #3 (11 pasticciotti, mix of vanilla, chocolate, and Strega-lemon) I used the silver sheet pan but pre-heat the oven to 500° F before baking. I kept the foil over the pastries for five minutes, like Batch #1. The result? I found Batch #3’s pastries to be slightly past golden (medium brown) on the sides and bottoms with three minutes remaining on the baking time. Therefore, I removed them from the oven at the 22. The lids were medium-dark brown. In other words, they were over-done for my liking without being scorched.
In future trials, I would try omitting the pizza stone or preheating it at a lower temperature. Alternatively, I could try reducing the total baking time from 25 minutes to 21 or 22 minutes. However, this advice is highly specific to my temperamental oven.
Thanks for the great tips and commentary. I believe that a human lifetime is not enough to perfect pusties.
Hey 👋🏼 those were great notes. I found preheating my oven to 425 with a Nordicware Naturals Jumbo cookie sheet was perfect. That size cookie sheet holds 24 pustie tins. Missionary rolled only for pasties at most at a time filmed them and then immediately covered them with the lid also cramping down with my thumb at the tops of each fluted section to seal them. Once I had 24 done, I put them in the refrigerator on another cookie sheet for 30 minutes. After refrigerating the Prepared pasties, I brushed them with an egg wash mixed with a splash of heavy cream. The protein of the egg browns it evenly and the fat in the cream gives it a nice shine and also thins out the egg which makes for a nice even wash. I cooked in 10 minutes, turned the pan around 180 and cooked another 10 minutes. That seemed to be perfect! I found some of my chocolate lids did pop up a little bit but once they cooled they weren’t right back together end it was a non-issue. However I did use special dark cocoa and I will use the advice to use regular cocoa next time. I wasn’t fond of the chocolate flavor with the dark.
So… I will make 48 more pasties tomorrow. The custard is already cooling. 🙂
You have 1 t baking soda, does that mean 1 Tsp?
Lower case t means teaspoon. Upper case T means tablespoon.
How weird that I am reading this after buying some of these just last night here in Astoria Queens NY! Spent the week upstate and had the tomato pie at Pereccas bakery in Schenectady and was looking for some sort of recipe for that and here I am through a series of clicks 🙂 I have been eating these treats since I was 2 years old and my Brooklyn family had them often after the big Sunday dinner in the late 60s. I remember walking to the bakery early Sunday mornings after church to get the semolina bread (always with the seeds) for dinner and getting a box of pasties for dessert. These were always in the box . We called them pasti-chote. They are in most Italian bakeries here next to the sfogliatelle and cannoli. So delicious !
I am going to give these a shot. I am formally from Schuyler New York and used to buy these in Frankfort New York at Friendly’s bakery.
Recruit a helper, because they are a lot of work. Worth it, though. Let us know how they turn out.
Wow, Sal, so happy to find this post! I’m a Utica gal, living in CT for the past 20 years. Firstly, good pusties don’t exist in CT! At least not in the way they’re so tasty and revered in Utica. Secondly, have you considered lemon zest in the pustie dough? When my grandmother passed away, I inherited her pustie tins and recipe but have yet to attempt on my own. I swear that every time I bite into a perfectly flaky Florentine pustie (Cafe CaNole is a close 2nd), I catch the faintest hint of citrus. I only eat vanilla and it’s a back note flavor. Anyway, I appreciate your baking endeavors on this most enjoyable post. And for anybody who took offense to my CT comment: New Haven, brick oven pizza is NO JOKE!! After 2 decades, it IS my bar. 🙂 Grazie!
Hi Sal! I just made these again – my biggest batch so far – 26 pusties from one dough recipe. I’m using the 3.5″ tin from Flihans…
I researched the best egg wash and I learned that fat makes it shiny and protein browns… and that it’s best to use a thin wash. I used 1 egg, 1 T water and a splash of heavy cream… they were perfect! (I also omitted sprinkling the tops with sugar as the sugar browns too quickly resulting in an uneven color on top.
Anyway – I have tried multiple crusts and multiple fillings, and your wins hands down every time!
I didn’t know how to mix the dough by hand, so I found a French guy on YouTube that demonstrated it by making a volcano in the flour and then making a pond in the middle with the egg mixture. It was so much fun! And I felt more connected to Nani by getting hands in the mixture. THANK YOU!!!
Thank *you* for keeping the pusty love train chugging down the tracks. And thanks for the egg wash tip.
I grew up in Utica when Bleecker Street was full of great Italian restaurants and bakeries. You could buy pusties (yes, ies not ys) all over town. There was a deli across from UFA named “Chuck’s” that always has lots of pusties or pastaciotti, which in Utica sounded like pustachotte. Was my favorite and whenever I wound up in Utica I brought back a box of them, which had a lot of trouble surviving the trip home!
In New York City they never heard of them but then again, they call half moons (https://hemstroughts.com/) black and whites!
Thanks for the comment! Florentine Pastry shop was and still is my go to for pusties. They now deliver nationwide. Shipping is pricey, but worth it considering what a PITA they are to make at home. I had a couple dozen pustiea and half moons sent to my parents in Chicago last Christmas. Caruso also ships, although their pusties can’t hold a candle to Florentine’s. Peace, love, and Tomato Pie to you and your family.
Hi Sal! Thank you so much for this post. I’m attempting it today (made the dough last night). I do have a question though that I didn’t see in the comments thread. I used to get mine at Star Bakery and occasionally when Star was closed at Holland Farms (though not my fav for this in particular) in Whitesboro. I recall the dough being on the thicker side, can you recommend a thickness to roll it to? I don’t think as thin as I would a pie crust, am I right? Would 1/8 or 1/4 be better, in your opinion?
Hey Heather. I am no professional baker, but we typically roll ours out closer to 1/8″ than 1/4″. But I say make one of each and do a two pusty test batch. Whichever you prefer, do those for the rest of the batch.