Place the flour and sugar in a bowl on a pastry board.
In the center add the lard and the eggs, together with the grated lemon peel.
Quickly knead everything until you get a compact and smooth mixture, without working the dough too much.
Wrap the dough in the transparent food wrap and leave to rest in the refrigerator for about an hour.
Filling:
Put the cooked wheat, milk, butter and the grated rind of lemon into a saucepan.
Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often so that the mixture becomes creamy.
In a separate bowl, sift the sheep's ricotta and add the sugar, eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, a tablespoon of orange blossom water and a pinch of cinnamon.
Work the mixture thoroughly until it becomes smooth in texture.
Add the grated lemon rind and the candied fruit cut into cubes.
Mix everything well and add the cream of wheat which you prepared earlier, which will have cooled in the meantime.
Assembling the dessert:
Pick up the shortcrust pastry from the fridge and spread it to a thickness of about ½ cm. You can use a pasta machine to help you with that.
Take a baking pan of about 30 cm in diameter, butter and flour it, then cover it with the pastry.
Cut out the excess, and set it aside as it will be used later to prepare the decorative strips. Pour the previously prepared cream inside, level and fold the edges of the dough inwards. Decorate with the strips forming a kind of criss-cross similar to pies.
Brush the surface of the cake with a beaten egg yolk and bake in a preheated oven at 180 ° for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The pastiera must have an amber color.
After cooking, take it out of the oven, let it cool completely and then sprinkle with icing sugar.