DESSERTS · TUSCANY

Torta della Nonna: grandmother’s tart, without a grandmother.

Name: Torta della Nonna: grandmother’s tart, without a grandmother.
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Tuscan
Ingredients: 300 g type 00 flour; 100 g icing sugar; 150 g cold butter; 2 eggs; 1 lemon zest; 4 egg yolks (for cream); 100 g sugar; 40 g cornstarch; 500 ml milk; 1 pod vanilla; 80 g pine nuts (lightly toasted)

APRIL 7, 2026· 3 MIN READ · ★★★★☆ 4.7

Shortcrust pastry, pastry cream, pine nuts. The torta della nonna is Tuscan, specific to Florence, and named not after any grandmother in particular but after the archetype of home cooking. It is best the day after it is made.

INGREDIENTS

What you actually need.

Serves

NOTA BENE

Some Florentine versions add lemon zest to both the pastry and the cream. Some add a little vin santo to the cream. Both are correct. The pine nuts are not optional.

METHOD

7 steps, and one will define the dish.

Make the pastry.

Rub butter into flour and sugar. Add eggs and zest, bring together quickly. Rest 30 minutes in fridge.

Make pastry cream.

Whisk yolks, sugar, cornstarch. Heat milk with vanilla to simmer. Combine, cook until thick. Cool completely with cling film on surface.

Line a 24cm tin.

With two-thirds of the pastry, 4–5mm thick.

Fill with cold cream.

Level the surface.

Top with remaining pastry.

Rolled thin, sealed at edges.

Scatter pine nuts.

Press lightly into the surface.

Bake at 175°C for 40 minutes.

Golden and set. Rest before slicing.

WHY IT WORKS — THE SCIENCE

The cream must be cold before it goes in.

The torta della nonna is not named after anyone’s grandmother specifically. It is named after the idea of a grandmother — the archetype of home cooking, of a kitchen that smells of vanilla and butter, of a tart that has been made the same way every Sunday for as long as anyone can remember. It is Florentine, ancient, and better the day after it is baked.

The construction is simple: shortcrust pastry, pastry cream, pine nuts scattered across the top lid of pastry before baking. The cream must be cold before assembly. The pine nuts must be toasted separately before they go on, because the oven will not brown them properly while also cooking the pastry. These are the two rules. Everything else is flexible.

Why the pine nuts matter

Pine nuts in Italian pastry are used with more intention than pine nuts in most other cuisines. In the torta della nonna, they provide a textural contrast — the crunch of the nut against the smooth cream, the faint resinous bitterness against the sweet vanilla. Hazelnuts or almonds do not produce the same result. The substitution is not a variation; it is a different tart.

“The torta della nonna does not need to be improved. It was arrived at over several generations and it is correct. I make it once a week and I have not changed the recipe in fifteen years.”— FABIO PICCHI, CIBREO, FLORENCE