EASY FRENCH APPLE TART (tarte fine aux pommes)

We were invited to join some friends for lunch on the campsite in the village.  They bring their caravan every year and we meet up with them if we can.  It was all a bit last minute as we had only just arrived back in France ourselves from a stay in England.  I offered to bring dessert then I scratched my head and wondered what I could make, having only done a very basic shop on our return.  I settled on a recipe by James Martin that I had had my eye on for a while and you can see here.  There are a lot of apple tart recipes by James Martin to choose from!

Many recipes for this simple apple tart have a layer of cooked apple under the apple slices but his recipe uses a layer of marzipan.  This very much appealed to me as apple and almond are a great combination.  I also had a pack of ready made marzipan in the cupboard and a roll of puff pastry in the freezer.

I trimmed the pastry to a slightly smaller size (by about 2cm all round) so that it would definitely fit on my baking sheet and also the plate I had earmarked for serving it.

I followed the recipe pretty closely except that when it came to glazing the finished tart I used apricot jam for that "patisserie" look rather than melted butter.  

It was a delicious tart, looked great and tasted wonderful.  Next time I would probably pack in more sliced apples but otherwise it's a lovely dessert which looks way more difficult than it actually is to make.

Ingredients

1 pack ready made, ready rolled puff pastry

3-4 eating apples

1/3 (approx) of a 450g block of ready made marzipan

1 egg, beaten

50g butter, melted

2 tblsp caster sugar

2 tblsp apricot jam*

Method

Line a large baking sheet with baking paper.  Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.

Unroll the pastry and trim to fit your serving plate.  Mine was circular as most French pasty comes in circles but an oblong or square tart is also good as long as you have a suitable serving plate.

Prick the pastry all over with a fork.

Slice the marzipan very thinly and lay the slices over the pastry leaving a small margin at the outside.  It needn't look too pretty as it melts into a homogeneous layer under the apples.

Peel, core and thinly slice the apples*.  Arrange them in a neat pattern over the marzipan leaving as few gaps as possible.  Concentric circles work on a round tart and opposing rows or diagonals look good on square or oblong pastry.  There are lots of ideas for inspiration on the internet if you Google "French apple tart images".

Brush the apples carefully with the melted butter and sprinkle over the sugar.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the apples are tender, the pastry is golden brown and the marzipan bubbling at the edges.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool until just warm.

Put the jam into a small saucepan and heat gently until melted.  Brush carefully over the apples so as not to disturb the pattern.

Serve warm or cold, with cream or ice cream.

Serves 8-10 portions.

*Cheap apricot jam works best as it has less real fruit in it and therefore fewer lumps of apricot! You can of course pick out or sieve out the lumps or Sainsbury's sell small jars of apricot glaze which is perfect for the job.  Personally I don't mind a tasty lump or two of fruit in my glaze for that home made look!

*Peeling the apples is optional, as seen in some of the Google images.

APPLE CARAMEL CAKE

For some time I have wanted to use a relatively new Bonne Maman product, Caramelised Apple Spread.  Curiously, although Bonne Maman is a French company I have not found this spread for sale anywhere in France.  The only place I have found it is Sainsbury's in the UK.  It tastes divinely like tarte tatin, the wonderful flavour of caramelised cooked apples, and having bought a jar I wondered what you would do with it.  Simply spreading it on toast or a crumpet seemed too ordinary but I imagined it would be fabulous as a filling for a sponge cake.

I had in mind Mary's recipe for her apple and lemon sponge cake (see here) but using the spread as a filling instead of lemon curd and cream.  I also decided to go rogue and add a layer of caramel buttercream in the middle and on top.

I my usual method for grating the apple, which was to cut the apple it half vertically, remove the core with a melon baller or teaspoon and grate using the peel to hold it.  You end up with grated apple and holding a piece of apple skin that can be discarded - with your own skin intact!

It was a very elegant looking cake with a nice moist crumb and lovely flavour of both apple and caramel.  I made this one for a very sophisticated young lady’s thirteenth birthday.  Her mum decorated it simply with two candles which said “13”.  

Ingredients

For the cake

225g each of baking spread

    caster sugar

    self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

two eating apples, peeled, cored and grated

For the filling and topping

100g unsalted butter, softened

200g icing sugar

2 tblsp Bon Maman confiture de lait or other caramel spread such as Carnation

a splash of milk if needed

3-4 tblsp Bon Maman caramelised apple spread

suitable decorations for example mini fudge chunks 

Method

Grease and line the bases of two 20cm sponge tins.  Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk4.

Put all the cake ingredients except for the apple into a large bowl and beat until smooth.  (An electric hand whisk makes this easier.)

Fold in the grated apple evenly and divide between the two prepared tins.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and done.  Cool in the tins.

To make the buttercream, beat together the butter, icing sugar and caramel spread.  Add the milk if needed to make it spreadable (the weather was quite hot when I made this cake so very little milk was needed).

Remove the sponges from the tins.  Making sure the sponges are completely cold, place one on a cake plate or cake stand and spread the top with enough apple spread to make a generous layer (about half a jar).  Then top this with half of the buttercream.  

Place the second sponge on top and spread the remaining half of the buttercream on the top.  Decorate with mini fudge chunks if liked or serve plain.

Cuts into 8-10 slices.

APPLE CHUTNEY

Every year our apples fall from the tree too soon, heaps of them.  Most are unusable due to insect damage and end up in the compost but most years I manage to salvage some.  This year I decided to make some chutney.

I adapted a recipe on the Good Food website to what I had in stock, using Melfor vinegar instead of cider vinegar, demerara sugar instead of light muscovado and a mixture of raisins and sultanas.  You could also add other spices than just ginger: maybe cinnamon or even curry powder.

Peeling and chopping so many apples is not my favourite pastime so I've given it two stars for the amount of tedious work but it's a delicious chutney.  It goes well with our new favourite French cheese - Laguiole, which is not dissimilar to a strong cheddar and can usually be found amongst the Cantal cheeses as it’s from the same region of France.  

I'm sure it would go equally well with pork pie, sausage rolls and cold meats.

It’s ready for eating straight away but can be left to "mature" for a few weeks.

There was such a huge quantity of ingredients that I had to cook mine in two separate pans, dividing them equally between the two.  Interestingly, one lot cooked quicker than the other, the wider, flatter pan finishing first by several minutes!

I remembered a tip from, I think, a James Martin recipe on how to tell if your chutney is ready.  It should be nice and thick and when you drag your spoon through it there should be a clear trail which only fills with liquid very slowly.  If it refills immediately cook for longer, in five minutes intervals.

At the time of writing you can see the original recipe here.  The comments suggest it’s a very popular and successful recipe and there are interesting tips and ideas.

Ingredients 

1.5 kg cooking apples (prepared weight) I had about 1.7kg.

750g demerara sugar

500g mixed raisins and sultanas

2 medium white onions

2tsp mustard seeds

2tsp ground ginger

1tsp salt

700ml Melfor or cider vinegar 

Method

Put all of the ingredients into a large saucepan (or divide equally between two), bring to the boil gently then simmer uncovered for 30-40 minutes or until thick and ready (see picture above).  Stir frequently and adjust the heat so that that the chutney doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan.

While the chutney is cooking sterilise eight suitable jars by washing in hot soapy water.  Rinse well and put jars and lids on a baking sheet in the oven set at 140°C for 20 minutes.

Allow the chutney to cool then fill your jars and seal tightly.  Once opened they should be kept in the fridge.

Makes 6-8 jars of chutney.

BRAISED RED CABBAGE

It's years since I cooked a red cabbage.  Nick is not keen because he sometimes finds them too vinegary so I don't bother just for myself.   However, it was by now December, Christmas is not that far around the corner so I thought "why not" and decided to give it a go.  Then I started looking for recipes.

A lot of recipes had apple in the ingredients.  I didn't have any apples so carried on looking and found this recipe which didn't include apple and also looked very straightforward.  You simply put everything into a large saucepan and cook it on the hob for a very long time.  No need for sweating the onions separately.  

The recipe uses cider vinegar which  I didn't have so I used the sweetened vinegar called Melfor which I thought might do instead.  Also, in a nod to all those recipes that do include apple I added a couple of tablespoons of the apple compote that contains chunks of apple for the last few minutes of cooking.  (We have it on our cereals and porridge so get through a lot of it.)  Both added to the sweetness I think and it was very tasty.  Everyone had seconds including Nick so it will definitely be on the menu this Christmas.

Ingredients

1 small or ½ a large red cabbage (roughly 900g)

1 large red onion

70g soft light brown sugar

70m cider vinegar or similar

150ml red wine

1 large knob of butter

1 cinnamon stick

2 tblsp apple compote or apple sauce (optional)

Method

Trim the cabbage, remove the core and shred finely.

Peel and thinly slice the onion.

Put all of the ingredients (except for the apple compote) into a very large saucepan and season with salt and pepper.

Heat gently until simmering, stirring often.  Turn the heat right down, cover and simmer gently for 1 hour and 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick or burn on the bottom of the pan.  Remove the lid and simmer for another 30 minutes or until the cabbage is nice and tender.  Stir regularly throughout the cooking time.

If using the apple, stir in just before serving and leave on the hob for a few minutes to make sure it's warmed through.  Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.  Serve hot.

This can be made one or two days before needed.  Keep in the fridge and reheat either on the hob or in the microwave until piping hot.

Serves 6-8, depending on how much you like red cabbage!

PLUM AND APPLE CRUMBLE also apple, orange and apricot crumble

Never in a million years did I think that I would need to consult a recipe for a crumble.  I have, after all, been making crumbles for about sixty years, ever since I first started helping my mum to make the Sunday dinner.

Crumbles in those days were very basic, either apple or rhubarb, using Bramley cooking apples bought from the greengrocer van that came round on Friday evenings, or rhubarb from the rhubarb patch at the top of the garden behind the greenhouse.  At the right time of year there would be wild blackberries to add to the apples.

They would be made the same way as pastry, half fat to flour, usually margarine, rubbed in by hand.  There were no embellishments, just fruit and crumble topping served with Bird's custard.  They were not fancy, just plain home cooked fare.

I made my crumbles like this for decades and always had some block margarine in the fridge for that purpose.  When I got my first food processor I made my pastry and crumble mix in that which saved a bit of time.

Latterly I have become extremely lazy.  Fruit chucked into the bottom of the dish with - quelle horreur - shop bought crumble mix on the top.  Maybe sprinkled with a few flaked almonds.

With friends coming round for supper I had decided to make a crumble and thought it was time I should up my game.  Hence the hunt for an actual recipe and the first one I liked the look of is by Mary Berry which you can see here.  The main difference is that the proportion of butter to flour is greater than half and the sugar used for the topping is demerara.  I had plenty of time so even rubbed the butter into the flour by hand!  

A crumble is a popular dessert in restaurants in this part of France I had noticed that the topping is often fairly thin, sometimes barely covering the fruit layer.  Quite different from my home made crumbles which had a good thick layer of topping.  Having decided to use a small bag of my cinnamon baked plums (see here) from the freezer, I supplemented it with a few apples and then wondered if the quantity of crumble in the recipe might be too much.  So, I made 1½ times the quantity, used half and put the other half in a bag in the freezer ready for another day.

It was lovely, deep golden and fudgy and the demerara sugar sprinkled on top gave it quite a sparkly, glamorous appearance.  This is the way I will be making my crumbles in future.  

Ingredients

For the fruit layer

About 12oz plums (or try gooseberries)

2 tblsp soft light brown sugar

a sprinkling of cinnamon

3-4 eating apples

For the crumble topping

9oz plain flour

6oz cold butter, cubed

3oz demerara sugar (plus extra for sprinkling)

*I have used imperial weights, i.e. ounces instead of grams, because that was easier when calculating the increased quantities compared to the original recipe! 

Method

Preheat the oven to 200° C / 180° fan / gas mk 6 and butter a suitable shallow baking dish.  Mine was about 20cm square.

My plums were ready cooked and in the freezer (see text) but if you are using fresh plums, wash them, cut in half and remove the stones then cut into quarters.  Put into a large saucepan with a tblsp of water, the brown sugar and cinnamon.  Peel the apples, slice them straight into the pan with the plums (discarding the cores) and cook gently until just soft.  Add a little more water if necessary and stir often.  Set aside to cool while you make the crumble topping.

To make the crumble topping, put the flour, butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl.  Rub together using your fingertips until you have the appearance of breadcrumbs.  A few larger clumps will be fine.

Tip the fruit into the baking dish and spread it out evenly.  Sprinkle roughly half of the crumble topping over the fruit and bag the other half for the freezer.

Sprinkle a little extra demerara sugar over the top and bake for 20 minutes.

Then lower the oven temperature to 180° C / 160° fan / gas mk 4 and continue baking for a further 20 minutes by which time the topping should be golden brown and the fruit bubbling slightly at the edges of the dish.  Keep your eye on it and check after 10 minutes to make sure it's not overcooked or burning.

Serves 6 portions.  Plus the extra crumble mix which is frozen for future use.  Thaw at room temperature for an hour or so before using.  

Update: I have since made the crumble using the food processor instead of rubbing in by hand, stopping before the crumbs were completely even in appearance.  In other words, left a few lumpy bits.  It was just as good!

For APPLE, ORANGE AND APRICOT CRUMBLE:

Replace the plums in the filling with:

a handful of dried apricots, diced

3-4 small oranges, peeled and divided into segments

Put all the prepared fruit in the baking dish and microwave on high for 4 minutes then stir together before adding the cinnamon, demerara sugar and crumble mix.

Proceed as with the apple plum and apple crumble.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I feel compelled to mention here the plate!

At our local déchèterie (council tip or recycling centre) there is a large table where people can put unwanted items that are still good.  You can simply help yourself.  There were huge piles of crockery the other day and tea plates like this are very useful for the larger gatherings that I sometimes host, or to lend out to others for theirs.  They are very pretty so I took six of them.

GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY

We harvested the last of the tomatoes the other day, dug up the plants and dispatched them to the compost heap.  All but one of the tomatoes were hard and green.

I had made green tomato chutney in the past and was not too thrilled with it but this time we had so many good tomatoes that it seemed a shame not to do something with them.  

With the rain pouring down outside and the wind howling it seemed like the perfect day to do some cooking on the wood burning stove so I searched online for a different recipe.  It was a Sunday and the shops were shut so I looked for one where I could use what I had in the house.

You can see the original recipe on the Waitrose website here.  I didn't have any mustard seeds so used ready made wholegrain mustard instead.  The only vinegar I had was this one which is brown vinegar with added honey.  I didn't have a cooking apple so used two eating apples (golden delicious).  (I omitted the chilli as I personally can't eat it nowadays.)

I have listed below the ingredients that I used but suggest you refer to the original recipe which I used as a guide.

I remembered from the last time that I made chutney (which was some years ago) the best way to tell if it's thick enough and done.  You draw your spoon across the bottom of the pan and if it leaves a clear channel which doesn't immediately fill up with liquid it's ready.

The quantity of tomatoes I had made 2½ Bonne Maman jars of chutney.  Most of the recipes I looked at suggested you should keep it for 2-3 weeks before eating it but of course I had to have a little taste!

It is yummy!!  It's nice and chunky, just as I like a chutney, as I'd chopped the ingredients not too small.  The flavour is delicious, both sweet and sharp, and I wonder if the particular vinegar I used had something to do with that.

Anyway, I can't see me lasting 2-3 weeks before I open the first jar and it's most unlikely to end up at the back of the cupboard, unloved and still uneaten 2-3 years later!  It's a winner!

Ingredients

650g green tomatoes, washed and chopped

2 onions, peeled and chopped

2 eating apples, peeled, cored and chopped

200ml brown vinegar

50g sultanas

1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp salt

75g light soft brown sugar

Method

Put the tomatoes, onions and apples into a large, heavy based saucepan, with half (100ml) of the vinegar.

Bring gently to the boil and simmer for around 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the veg are soft.

Add the other ingredients and remaining vinegar and cook again, stirring frequently, until the mixture has thickened.  (See text for how to tell when it's ready.)

Spoon into sterilised jars while still warm.  Tap the jars on the worktop several times to dispel any air bubbles, seal and label the jars.

Makes 2½ 1lb jars of chutney.

To sterilise the jam jars

Wash the jars and lids thoroughly in hot, soapy water and rinse well.  Shake off any excess water (do not dry with a tea towel) and place on a baking tray.

Place the tray in a warm oven (160°C or thereabouts) for 10 minutes until dry.  Fill the jars while they are preferably still warm.

APPLE AND RAISIN CAKE

I recently stumbled across a really nice website containing lots of lovely home baking recipes.  It’s for a brand of flour called Odlums which I had never heard of before and comes from Ireland.  From it I had bookmarked a nice looking recipe for an apple cake which you can see here.  

This week’s Monday walk was cancelled for the third time due to the wet weather.  I have to say that the weather has been grim for at least the last four weeks which is very disappointing.  However, our walking group are a social bunch so even if they can’t walk the debriefing in the bar afterwards usually goes ahead!  More often than not someone brings a cake so I decided to make the apple cake.  (I added a handful of raisins to the list of ingredients, just because it seemed like a nice idea.)  

I really liked the decoration for what was a very plain cake - rings of apple arranged on top.  This posed a challenge as my usual method for coring an apple wouldn't work.  I good old rummage in my kitchen drawer unearthed my little used apple corer.

I usually cut the apple in half vertically from north to south and dig out the core with a melon baller.  This method is good for producing thick or thin wedges.  To get the apple rings I cut the apple in half horizontally around the equator and used the apple corer.  I then sliced the apple thinly to get the rings.  Easy peasy.  You can never beat having the right equipment (even if you have to hunt for it).

It was a very nice cake.  I often find that apple cakes can be a bit fragile, especially those containing apple slices.   They can fall apart which makes being handed round rather messy.  This one held its shape perfectly, possibly because the apples were chopped into quite small dice and the mixture was quite stiff.  It had to be spread into the tin rather than poured.  

I baked it in an oblong tin measuring  11" x 7" rather than the loaf tin in the recipe.  It cut perfectly into 12 squares of just the right size for a group.  Definitely a recipe I will be using again.  The only change I would try is to add a little more spice next time.

The more eagle eyed of you might notice a different cat in one of the pictures.  We were so sad to have to say goodbye to our beloved Daisy last month when she (and we) lost the battle with her tumour.  Yvonne came into our lives just one week later.  Her owner had left her with a friend for a couple of weeks in the summer but two months later he made it clear that he was not coming back for her.  Word went out among the walking group that a new home was needed so she is now part of our little family.  She's nine years old and is settling in really well so far.

You can read more about Daisy here.

Ingredients

225g self raising flour

175g softened butter or baking spread

175g golden caster sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 eating apples

50g raisins

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Grease or line a 2lb loaf tin or a 11" x 7" baking tin with parchment.

In a large bowl, cream the butter or spread with the sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tblsp of flour with each addition.

Sift in the rest of the flour and cinnamon and fold in.

Peel and core the apples.  Chop 2½ of the apples into small dice and add to the mixture with the raisins.  Stir into the mixture and transfer to the tin.  Level the top.

Cut the remaining half apple into thin slices and arrange on top of the cake.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown and set.  Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into 12 squares or 8-10 slices.

APPLE TURNOVERS

Some time ago I made some raspberry turnovers which were delicious (you can see the post here).  In fact I made them several times, taking them to various events where they always went down well.

With a pack of puff pastry lurking in the freezer I had a yen for making them again, looked up my post about them and referred back to the original source; a blog which you can see here.  There I found a really good idea in the comments for making them using apple compote and apple slices.  "Now there's a thing" I thought and, rather than go out and buy some raspberries, I decided to give it a try.  We always have apple compote in the house as we have it most days on our cereal or porridge.

At first I put two wedges of apple onto each square of pastry but soon realised that there was too much filling so removed one wedge from them all.  By the time I had done this the compote was already spreading and every one frankly looked a soggy mess.  Thinking this experiment was not going well and the turnovers were likely to turn out like a dog's dinner I put them in the fridge to chill and firm up a bit in the hope that they might be rescued.

They turned out fine, much better than expected, and definitely worth baking again.  Leftovers had lost a bit of their crispness by the next day but were still delicious.

Ingredients

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled puff pastry
12 tsp apple compote
1 - 2 small eating apples, peeled, cored and cut into thin wedges
milk and demerara sugar to finish
icing sugar to decorate (optional)

Method

Take the pastry out of the fridge and allow to come to room temperature well before using, at least half an hour.  Pastry that is still chilled will crack when you unroll it.

Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Unroll the pastry and cut in half along its length.  Cut each half into squares of equal size. (The number of squares will be determined by the dimensions of your sheet of pastry as it’s important that the squares are exactly square and not oblong.)

Put a teaspoon of compote and one wedge of apple on a square, slightly off centre.  Dampen the edges of the square and fold it diagonally over the filling to form a triangle.  Press the edges together then seal by pressing a fork into the pastry along the edge.  Repeat with the rest of the squares and make three small slashes in the top of each triangle.  

Brush each puff with milk and sprinkle with demerara sugar.  Arrange the puffs on the baking sheet with a little room between each for spreading and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan while the puffs are chilling.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.  The compote will leak out a bit but this adds to the charm of the puffs!

Serve as they are, slightly warm or cold, or dusted with icing sugar or decorated with a zig zag of icing made with lemon juice and icing sugar if you like.

Makes approximately 12 turnovers, depending on the dimensions of your pastry sheet.

RUSTIC FRUIT TART and a brilliant little gadget!

 

What do you do when a rapid dessert is called for?  You make one of these tarts from whatever fruit you have in!

I used a pack of ready made, ready rolled sweet pastry (called pâte sablée), a few sticks of rhubarb and two apples.  This pastry comes as a circle in France which is handy.  In the UK it's usually an oblong which is more awkward, in which case it's probably better to buy the pastry in a block and roll it out yourself into a circle.

I have made tarts like this before but this time I used a suggestion from Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall's excellent book "Love your leftovers".  I used less sugar to sweeten the fruit and spread some strawberry jam on the pastry before filling it instead.  It took very little time to make and was on the table in well under an hour.  Delicious!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now would be a good time to mention my latest kitchen gadget.  A Jar Key.

I think I first heard about it from Angela over at Tracing Rainbows who mentioned it in a post some time ago.

I spotted one in Zodio in France recently.  This is a chain of stores selling kitchen ware, craft stuff and home wares, like a cross between Dunelm Mill, Hobbycraft and The Range.  It's a fabulous shop and an Aladdin's cave for enthusiastic cooks, crafters and people who need gorgeous new towels!!

Jar Keys are not cheap but by jove they are worth every penny (or centime).  They take all the effort and frustration out of getting the lid off a glass jar.  AND they leave the lid undamaged so that you can reuse the jar.

As time goes by the fight with jam jar lids has become increasingly more difficult and I have tried everything.  I have tried running them under hot water with the consequent scalding, gripping with bits of bubbly rubber stuff, crushing with one of those lid removers that look like a cross between a tin opener and a medieval torture instrument and, ultimately, asking a neighbour or passer by for help!  Nick is able to get them off with a certain amount of grunting and cursing but if he's out I have no chance.

Well, this little gadget has solved that problem.  It has a neat little grip that tucks under the edge of the lid and with one slight tweak the vacuum is released and it comes off effortlessly.  No more dreading the new jar of olives, jam or compôte!  All the stress is now gone!

Every home should have one.  They should be available on the NHS to prevent jar related high blood pressure and minor accidents in the home!  Brilliant!

You can get them from Amazon, Lakeland and I'm sure many other places.  Don't buy any alternatives, this is the one that works!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ingredients

1 pack of ready made, ready rolled sweet pastry (or plain shortcrust pastry)

4 slim sticks of rhubarb

2 eating apples

2-3 tblsp strawberry jam

2-3 tblsp ground almonds

1 tblsp granulated sugar

1 beaten egg or a little milk

demerara sugar for sprinkling

Method

Remove the pastry from the fridge 15 minutes before you want to make the tart.  

Preheat the oven to 190° / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Place a sheet of baking parchment on a baking sheet.  I usually use the paper that the pastry comes wrapped in.

Unroll the pastry and spread the jam in a circle leaving a margin of about 5cm (2").*

Sprinkle the ground almonds over the jam.  This helps to absorb any juice from the fruit and avoid the dreaded soggy bottom.

Wash and trim the rhubarb and cut into smallish chunks.  Peel, core and chop the apples.  Arrange the fruit on top of the ground almonds.  Sprinkle the granulated sugar on top.

Fold the pastry over the fruit, overlapping as if to form pleats.  

Brush the pastry with either beaten egg or a little milk and sprinkle demerara sugar over the whole thing.

Bake for 30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and the fruit bubbling.

Serve warm with cream, ice cream or custard.

*You can use a narrower margin and use more fruit, which results in a larger tart with less of an overlapping edge to the crust and will make more servings.

Serves 5-6 portions.

PLUM FRANGIPANE TART

A friend in the village has a tree loaded with very small plums and invited us to help ourselves.

I don’t know what variety they are but they’re about the size of a large cherry.

They are slightly sharp, not quite sweet enough to eat like cherries, but are excellent when cooked.  The only problem is the stones.  Plums make a delicious pudding but the stones take the edge off the pleasure of them I think and more so when the fruit is small and the number of stones even greater.  (I also love damsons but the zillions of little stones definitely spoil a damson pie or crumble for me!)

With over a pound of them in the bowl I decided to try using my pink cherry stoner. It worked a treat and I whistled through the whole bowlful in no time at all.  (I put the egg in the picture so you could gauge the size of the plums.)

I decided to use some of them for a favourite recipe by Mary Berry and the rest went into the freezer.

The base is made from slices of brioche and a basic ready sliced brioche loaf from the supermarket is ideal.  It creates a slightly cakey base that has a definite patisserie style to it.  (If a brioche loaf is not available you can use brioche finger rolls.)

The frangipane (almond) filling is quickly made using a food processor but a stick blender and mixing bowl would work.  Then you arrange the fruit on top as randomly or precisely as you fancy.

It looks good when it comes out of the oven but brushing it all over with melted apricot jam to give it a nice glaze is the finishing touch which definitely makes it look the business.  

I have made this recipe many times, or at least my own adaptation of it, using various different fruits.  It makes a great large dessert to feed a crowd and always goes down well.  Hence I make no apology for re-posting it and giving the recipe again.

Here are a few more versions:

I made it recently using apricots.

You can see how the brioche turns into a nice cakey base.

I made it with rhubarb, which you can see here.

It was very good when I accidentally made it upside down - see here.

It was delicious when I made it using apples as per Mary Berry's original recipe - see here.

Ingredients

4-5 slices of a brioche loaf

175g spreadable butter or baking spread

175g caster sugar

1 tsp almond extract

150g ground almonds

3 eggs

50g plain flour

300-400g small plums, stoned and halved

2 tblsp apricot jam for glazing the pie

Method

Preheat the oven to 200° C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.  Butter a large, shallow baking dish about 28cm dia.

Press slices of brioche into the bottom of the dish, filling in gaps but not overlapping.  (You could also use 5-6 brioche rolls, in which case slice off the top and bottom crusts then slice in half horizontally.)

Put the butter and sugar into a food processor and whizz until light and fluffy.  Add the extract, almonds, eggs and flour and whizz again until nice and smooth.  

Spread the mixture evenly over the brioche base and arrange the fruit on top.  

Bake for about 40 minutes until golden brown and the centre is firm.  Warm the jam in a small saucepan to make it runny then brush it all over the top of the pie to glaze.  

Serve warm or at room temperature, with cream, ice cream or custard.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.