The day before the preparation, cook the wheat in the milk along with the sugar, lard, vanilla and orange peel over a low heat for a few hours until the mixture becomes dense and the wheat soft. Then prepare the short crust pastry and leave to rest for at least an hour.

Cut the candied fruit into small pieces. In a large bowl, mix the Ricotta with the sugar, adding the yolks one at a time, the orange flower water (a phial) and the cinnamon. Add the wheat and candied fruit. Mix.

Grease the cake pan, line with 2/3 of the short crust pastry to a thickness of a 0.1 inch.
Beat the egg whites to form stiff peaks and add to the mixture, folding them in from top to bottom. When the milk is mixed in, check that there is enough orange flour water. If not, add some more. Pour the mixture into the cake pan, even off and put onto the heat.

On grease-proof paper, roll out the rest of the short crust pastry into a rectangle as long as the diameter of the cake pan. Using a knife, mark out several strips 0.8 inch wide.

Then following the marks on the pastry, cut the grease-proof paper too into slices, leaving the strips of pastry on top. Now take a strip and, turning it over, place it in the center of the tart where the diameter is greatest.

Gently remove the paper. Position a second strip and a third 1.2 inches away from one other on both sides of the central one. Then position the others to form a lattice work that leaves some lozenges uncovered. Bake in a slow oven (300°F) until the strips are dry and the pastry has become colored. Allow to cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

The Pastiera will improve if left for 3 or more days wrapped in paper at room temperature.