These supposed to be Plum tarts but ended up was a few Nectarine Tarts as the plums I bought was over riped. So, I replaced it with a few leftover nectarines from the fridge. Luckily there was one plum still can be used.
Now, the plum tart become a protagonist.
I think any fresh fruits would be delicious with the combination of frangipane and rich shortcrust pastry. I love the color of plums, its sharpness of color had pampered my appetite.For the rich shortcrust pastry:
2 eggs yolks
2 tbsp cold water
220g plain flour
110g unsalted cold butter, diced
pinch of salt
For the frangipane:
143g ground almond
25g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g butter
125g sugar
1 1/2 large egg
Method:
- For the pastry, add 2-3 tbsp cold water to the egg yolks and stir with a fork.
- Place the flour into the bowl of a food processor, followed by the cold butter, sugar powder and the salt.
- Turn the processor on and pulse several times until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Add two-thirds of the egg yolk/water mixture and pulse again. If the mixture is still too dry, add the remaining egg and water mixture (you may not need to use all of it). Be careful not to overwork the pastry. Stop pulsing when the mixture has the consistency of chunky breadcrumbs.
- Turn the pastry out onto a clean, floured work surface and, with floured hands, bring together to make a smooth dough, but don't knead.
- Shape into a flattened ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for about 10-15 minutes. You can keep the pastry at this stage for 2-3 days if not using it immediately.
- Remove the pastry from the fridge. On a clean, floured work surface, roll it out with a floured rolling pin until it's slightly larger than the flan ring. Using the rolling pin, lift the pastry and lay it over the flan ring.
- With your fingers, lightly press the pastry into the sides of the ring. Run a rolling pin over the top of the ring and pull away the excess pastry at the edges. Using your fingers, gently press the pastry up to slightly build up the height of the pastry at the edges. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork.
- For the frangipane, blitz the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a food processor until light and creamy.
- Add in the ground almond, plain flour and beaten eggs and whiz until completely mixed and smooth.
- Place in the fridge to firm up for at least half an hour.
- Chopped some over riped plums and cook gently unil softened, with jammy consistency. Let is completely cool down and ready to use.
- Cut others plums or nectarines into slices and maceratet them for 5 minutes by sprinkling them with sugar.
- Spoon some plum jam into the pastry case then spread the frangipane over the plum jam.
- Arrange the plums or nectarines on the surface of the frangipane, pressing them in lightly.
- Bake the tart in the 180'C preheated oven for about an hour. Remove tarts from th oven and leave it to cool.
