Sporcamuss Pugliesi con Crema Pasticcera e Miele

Pre-heat the oven to 200 °C. Lay the puff pastry squares on a lined baking sheet and bake until very puffed and deep golden. Remove and cool completely on a rack. The squares must be fully cold and rigid before assembly — any residual warmth will soften the cream on contact.

Prepare the crema pasticcera: whisk the egg yolks and sugar to a pale ribbon, then whisk in the flour. Bring the milk and vanilla pod to a bare simmer, remove the pod, and pour the hot milk over the yolk mixture in a steady stream, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the pan over medium heat and stir continuously until the cream thickens decisively and pulls away from the sides of the pan. The cream must be made noticeably thicker than for a standard tart filling — it must hold a firm shape when cold, not run. Transfer to a shallow tray, press clingfilm directly onto the surface and refrigerate until fully cold and set.

This is where the dish lives or dies. Immediately before frying — and not a moment sooner — place a thick, cold layer of pastry cream onto one pastry square and press a second square firmly on top to form a sandwich. The cream must be cold and the pastry pre-assembled only at the last possible instant: if the cream is warm it escapes into the frying oil; if the sandwich sits and rests, the pastry absorbs moisture from the cream and the crunch is irretrievably lost.

Heat the olive oil in a deep, wide pan to 175 °C, verified with a thermometer. Lower each sporcamuss into the oil and submerge it immediately. Fry until the pastry blisters, opens at the layers, and the cream begins to caramelise visibly at the exposed edges. The surface should be deeply golden. Lift and drain briefly.

Dust with icing sugar the instant the sporcamuss leaves the oil, before the surface cools. Serve immediately — on paper, standing up, in the Bari manner. The cream will escape. That is correct.