Like many others during these times of woe I’ve been cooking more. Today was a baking day: as well as the headline Fruit & Frangipane Tart, we put together a small “jam” tart (using half a jar of very sticky mango compote), pineapple crumble (using fresh, rapidly ripening, fruit), and put some “spare” bananas in the dehydrator to dry. Anyway here’s the tart recipe …

Fruit & Frangipane Tart

This makes enough to fill a deep 23cm quiche tin (preferably one with a removable base) with a bit of pastry left over for the “jam” tart.

Ingredients: Pastry
400gm plain flour
200gm butter
50gm caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
Milk
Pinch of salt

Ingredients: Fruit
1-2 coffee mugs full of pre-cooked “stewed” fruit of your choice (I used stewed rhubarb)
Extra sugar to taste

Ingredients: Frangipane
200gm ground almonds (I ground up some flaked almonds in a coffee mill)
200gm butter
180gm caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
Zest of a lemon or orange
Generous tbsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Heat the oven to 175°C.
2. Make the sweet pastry according to your usual method adding the minimum amount of milk to make it bind together. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
3. Roll out the pastry and line the greased flan tin. Blind bake for 15 minutes.
4. While the pastry case blind bakes, get the fruit and frangipane together.
5. If necessary, drain any excess liquid from the fruit (I put mine in a sieve for 5 minutes and drained out an eggcup of juice) and sweeten to taste.
6. To make the frangipane put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat together until they form a smooth paste. As I need the exercise I did this by hand (the end result will be quite stiff) but with the right attachment you could do this in a food processor.
7. When the pastry case is ready, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before removing the baking beans. Turn the oven up to 180°C.
8. Put a good layer of fruit in the pastry case and then a generous layer of frangipane (ie. all of it!).
9. Return to the oven for 45-50 minutes until the frangipane is firm to the touch. If the frangipane is browning too much cover with a piece of foil.
10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before trying to remove the tart from the tin. Serve as either cake or pudding.

Notes

1. As I’m not a good pastry cook (hot hands and not enough practice) you may wish to follow your own preferred method for the pastry.
2. The jammier the fruit is the better it will set in the cooked tart.
3. I found this made about 25-30% too much pastry. Use the extra to make jam tart(s).