Aunt Antonietta’s Wheat Pie

La pizza di grano, more widely known as pastiera napoletana, is the traditional Easter cake of Naples, made with wheat, ricotta, eggs, and orange blossom. The term pizza di grano is an older, more domestic name, still used in many households in the region of Campania, where “pizza” simply refers to something baked in a tin rather than what we would now associate with savoury pizza.

This particular recipe is my aunt Antonietta’s, passed down and made year after year. Like many family versions, it carries small variations and gestures that do not always appear in written recipes, but are learned through repetition, memory, and care.

Historically, pizza di grano is tied to spring and Easter, its ingredients rich in symbolism. The wheat evokes rebirth and renewal, the eggs abundance and life, and the orange blossom water a trace of ritual and festivity. Traditionally prepared in the days leading up to Easter, it is a cake that is meant to rest and transform, its flavours deepening over time. In this sense, it is not only a dessert, but a ritual object, shaped as much by time and memory as by its ingredients.

In this sense, I think it transcends being a dessert, taking on the role of a ritual object shaped by time and memory as much as by its ingredients.

A Neapolitan Easter cake of wheat, ricotta, and orange blossom, finished with seven symbolic lattice strips.

Makes 3 large 24 cm (9-inch) deep pastiere, or 4 medium (20–22 cm)

Ingredients

For the filling
• 1 kg ricotta, well drained
• 700 g sugar
• 1 kg cooked wheat (grano cotto)
• 12 whole eggs
• 1 sachet or 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 vial or 1–2 teaspoons orange blossom water
• Zest of 1–2 oranges, finely grated
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional, but traditional in many homes)
• 100 g candied peel (orange, citron, or mixed)
• 250 ml milk (to soften the wheat)
• A knob of butter

For the pastry (pasta frolla)
• 500 g plain flour
• 200 g sugar
• 200 g butter
• 3 eggs
• Zest of 1 orange

Method

1. Prepare the wheat
In a saucepan, combine the cooked wheat with milk, butter, and strips of lemon and orange zest. Cook gently until the mixture becomes soft and creamy.
Allow to cool completely.
Optionally, you may enrich the mixture by adding about 500 ml of pastry cream.

2. Prepare the ricotta mixture
Sieve the ricotta until smooth, then mix with the sugar until creamy.
Add the eggs and stir well.
Incorporate the vanilla, orange blossom water, orange zest, and cinnamon.
Fold in the cooled wheat mixture and the candied peel.

If possible, allow the mixture to rest. Like many ritual foods, it benefits from time.

3. Make the pastry
Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine crumbs.
Add the sugar, eggs, and orange zest, and bring together into a soft dough.
Wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

4. Assemble
Roll out most of the pastry and line a deep tart tin.
Pour in the filling.

5. The Seven Strips (Sette Strisce)
Roll out the remaining pastry and cut seven strips.
Arrange them in a lattice pattern over the top.

Traditionally, the seven strips are said to represent:
• the seven days of Creation
• the seven sacraments
• the seven districts of ancient Naples

They evoke the idea of completion and divine order.
They are not merely decorative. They are symbolic. The pie becomes a small, edible cosmology.

6. Bake
Bake at 170–180°C (160°C fan) for approximately 60–75 minutes, until golden and gently set.

7. Rest (essential)
Leave the pastiera to rest for at least 24 hours, ideally longer.

This is essential. The flavours settle and deepen, becoming what they are meant to be:
orange, grain, sugar, and memory intertwined.

Final note

Dust lightly with icing sugar before serving.

Traditionally eaten at Easter, the pastiera is prepared on Holy Thursday or Good Friday, allowing time for transformation. The cake itself becomes a quiet reflection of transformation and renewal.