Summer Almond Tart
This rich almond tart recipe combines aromatic frangipane with a simple, sweet pastry. Perfect served with crème fraîche as a Italian-style dinner party dessert.
From the book
Trullo
Delicious recipes from the chef behind Trullo and Padella
Serious cooking with a laidback approach
A British take on Italian cuisine
Introduction
This rarely leaves the Trullo menu, because it possesses the ability to wear many faces with different moods and always pleases.
Ingredients
| For the pastry: | |
| 140g | plain flour, sifted |
| 40g | icing sugar, sifted |
| 75g | unsalted butter, very cold and cubed |
| 2 | free-range or organic egg yolks |
| For the frangipane: | |
| 250g | blanched almonds |
| 250g | caster sugar |
| 250g | unsalted butter, softened |
| 3 | medium free-range or organic eggs |
| crème fraîche, to serve |
Essential kit
You will need a food processor.
Method
To make the pastry, put the flour and icing sugar in a bowl or a food processor and mix. Add the butter and mix until you have the texture of fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks one at a time, continuously mixing to form a dough. Wrap in cling film and chill until firm.
To make the frangipane, grind or pound the almonds; I like different textures of almond so do it in three stages (coarse, medium and medium fine) taking a third out each time.
Cream the caster sugar and butter until light and fluffy; add the eggs one at a time while continuously mixing. Add the ground or pounded almonds and chill in the fridge.
Preheat the oven to 170˚C/gas mark 3, and take the frangipane out of the fridge to become malleable.
Get a 26cm loose based, non-stick tart shell and coarsely grate the pastry in the middle. Start pushing the pastry up the sides of the case with your thumbs and then form the base. Bake in the preheated oven for 14 minutes, then fill the tart shell with frangipane and return to bake for 1 hour. Leave to cool before serving with crème fraîche.
