Bar Counter · Custard-Filled Pastry
Pasticciotto Leccese
Photo: I, Calcagnile Floriano, User:Florixc https://www.flickr.com/photos/florixc/ / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
Locals in Lecce eat it for breakfast dunked straight into a cappuccino, treating what looks like a dessert as an everyday morning habit.
Pasticciotto is a small oval shortcrust pastry filled with warm vanilla custard, baked until the crust turns pale gold. Bars and pasticcerie across Lecce and the Salento peninsula sell them fresh every morning, often still warm from the oven.
Why it's made this way: Local tradition says it was created in 1745 in Galatina, in Salento, by a pastry cook named Andrea Ascalone, and it's now considered the defining breakfast pastry of Lecce.
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