Pastiera Napoletana

Put the granocotta in a pot and cover it with milk, about 400 g, or up to the edge of the wheat.

Add about 50 g butter, 50 g sugar and the orange skin.

Cook slowly until the milk is absorbed and the mixture is very sticky, around 20 minutes. It is ready when it bubbles like this.

For the short crust put the flour, butter, sugar, orange zest and a pinch of salt in the mixing bowl, with the butter at room temperature.

Mix gently at medium speed about five minutes until well crumbled, then add the eggs and mix another three or four minutes.

The dough is ready when everything is incorporated and nothing is left in the mixing bowl. Mix only a little more to shape it; overmixing warms the dough and makes it sticky.

Shape the dough into rounds, wrap it and rest it in the fridge at least an hour, and ideally make it two or three hours ahead.

Lift out the orange skin, turn the wheat into a bowl and cover it so it stays humid, and let it cool completely before it meets the ricotta and eggs.

For the filling mix the sugar into the ricotta until smooth and creamy with no lumps. This can be done a day ahead, and the ricotta takes on more of the sugar's flavour for it.

Add the cooled cooked wheat and mix, then the eight eggs and three yolks beaten together, the cinnamon grain and the orange blossom water.

Mix in the orange candy last.

Take the short crust out of the fridge at least two hours before rolling so it softens, but keep it at room temperature and not anywhere hot, or the butter melts.

Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper, pushing from the middle outwards and turning to keep it round, which avoids adding flour.

Spray the tray, or butter and flour it, and press the crust in by hand, pushing the air out. Patch and re-roll any tears, then trim the edge.

Prick holes in the base before filling, so the moisture that forms while baking does not bubble up under the cake.

Roll the third crust and cut it into strips, seven for each pastiera.

Fill to the top but leave about half a centimetre, as the filling rises while baking.

Lay seven strips over the top, four one way and three across, in a rhombus pattern that recreates the streets of central Naples.

Bake at 175 degrees for 45 minutes until golden brown on top, then drop to 150 degrees for another 50 minutes to dry the filling, and let the pastiera cool down in the oven.

Cool it completely before turning it out; warm it is very fragile and breaks, and traditionally it is baked on Good Friday to be eaten at Easter for exactly that reason.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.