Pasta Flora Recipe (Greek Jam Tart)

Growing up, Pasta Flora has been the easy go-to dessert whenever someone in the house got a craving for something sweet. The beauty of this delicious dessert is that it doesn’t require a lot of ingredients to start with, and most of which are just laying around the kitchen and fridge. I’ve never been a fan of jam, myself, but I’d only eat it in this context. Now that I’m my own adult, I keep a batch of jam in the fridge (homemade or store-bought) just for making pasta flora.

 What is Pasta Flora?

Pasta flora is a Greek jam tart, usually made with apricot jam, but any flavor of jam could be used. The dessert is versatile as it can be served with breakfast along with a nice cup of tea, a dessert for when company comes over, or just as a dessert after dinner. Some would even add a slice of pasta flora in their kids’ lunchboxes. It’s also always a big hit in birthday parties. Really, you make your own rules.

 How to make Pasta Flora?

As I mentioned, the ingredients of Pasta Flora are simple and readily around in every kitchen. Using apricot jam is traditional and recommended, because the tartness of the apricot balances nicely with the sweetness of the crust. But I stand firm that you can use any type of jam you want, although tarter jams are better.

The pillars of a Pasta Flora, aside from jam, are flour, butter, sugar, and eggs, which what makes up the pie crust.

Mix together the butter and sugar until fluffy, then mix in the eggs for a few minutes.

Mix the flour and baking powder together before adding them slowly to the butter mixture and folding. Once a nice dough forms, shape into ball and then cut one quarter of the ball, wrap it in plastic film, and set it aside.

In your pie dish, flatten out the bigger portion of the dough, then cover with a layer of jam.

The next part you can get creative with. With the remaining dough, either make cut out shapes to cover the jam, stripes, or refrigerate the dough for a while before grating it over the jam with a cheese grater.

Place in a preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until it becomes a beautiful shade of golden brown.

Serve once it’s cooled down.

That’s it!