Plum Frangipane Tart

Everyone needs an easy, impressive and delicious dessert-tart recipe up their sleeve. Mine is this incredibly versatile Plum Frangipane Tart. Frangipane is a lovely French invention of almond-flavoured pastry cream, that is a classic when paired with stone fruits.

Piles of juicy ripe plums, I used Queen Garnett, are layered on top of soft almond frangipane and encased with buttery-sweet vanilla pastry. If you don’t feel like making the pastry, I’d suggest using Careme, Vanilla Bean Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

I did make the pastry for this tart (pastry and I have never seemed to have much of an affinity) and it worked really well. It was a very soft mix, made even worse by the incredible humidity we are having right now, so I did refrigerate it after mixing, and again, after lining the tart tin. Loved not having to blind-bake it.

Ingredients

• *For the Pastry

• 250g plain flour

• 100g icing sugar

• 150g cold butter, cubed

• 2 egg yolks

• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

• 3-4 tblsp ice water

• • For the Frangipane Filling

• 150g butter, room temperature

• 150g caster sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

• dash almond essence

• 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk

• 150g ground almonds

• 50g flour

• 4-5 large plums or nectarines, sliced

Method

1. To make the pastry, combine the flour, icing sugar, butter and vanilla paste in the bowl of the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles rough breadcrumbs.
2. With the motor running, add the eggs yolks, and just enough water for the dough to come together. Turn out onto the bench and between two sheets of baking paper and form into a disk. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Roll the dough out, between two sheets of baking paper and place into a 23cm tart case with removable base.
4. Return to the fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 180C. For fan-forced oven reduce to 170C.
6. In the bowl of a mixer, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.
7. Add the vanilla paste, almond essence and eggs and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
8. Add the ground almonds and flour and mix until combined.
9. Spread the almond mixture onto the prepared pastry case and top with the sliced plums.
10. Bake for between 30-40 minutes until the frangipane is golden brown and cooked.
11. Allow to cool before slicing and serving.