simple summer berry & frangipane tart
I know I know, this doesn’t look simple?! This looks more TECHNICAL than a Paul Hollywood Choux Bun challenge on Bake Off. But I can tell you that it really isn’t. I really don’t work with pastry often, which is why when I found Matt Adlard, and his brilliant page, I thought “THIS IS IT. I SHALL FINALLY MAKE PASTRY AS GOOD AS GREGGS”.
Matt makes the most challenging of bakes so easy to do, and this was no exception. And if this is hard for you to do, I’ve provided little hacks in bold font.
SERVES 8-12 SLICES
30 min prep + 40 min cooking = 1 hour 10 minutes
INGREDIENTS:
pastry
225g plain flour
75g ground almonds
60g icing sugar
135g vegan butter (we used Stork), cubed
30g cold water
if you find pastry complicated, please use 1 block (500g) of shortcrust pastry and skip step 1
filling
150g roasted almonds
100g icing sugar
20g cornflour
90g plant milk
20g extra virgin olive oil
20g plain flour
4g baking powder
bit of lemon zest
small packet of flaked almonds (decoration)
jam
150g raspberries
1 tbsp agave syrup
juice of 1/2 lemon
20ml boiling water
if you can’t be bothered to make jam, buy a good quality jar of raspberry jam and skip step 5
finishers
1 punnet strawberries
1 punnet raspberries
vegan double cream (we used one from Coconut Collaborative)
fresh mint
METHOD:
Before we begin, get the oven HOT. 180°C, normal oven, not fan. Done it? Good. Now we crack on with the pastry. In a large mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients together, then add the cubed butter in. Use your hands to crumble the dry mix into the butter until it starts to form into a mix, then gradually pour the water in. Keep mixing until you’re left with a ball of dough. Now take it out of the bowl and pop onto a floured worktop (basically, put a pinch of flour on your kitchen worktop). If the dough feels too warm you can also chill it for 20 minutes in the fridge.
Roll out the pastry until it’s 2cm thick, then push into a 20cm diameter pie dish. Gently pop holes in the base of the pastry with a fork. Now add baking paper to the pie dish, then some uncooked rice (or baking beans), and blind bake for 20 minutes. When finished, remove the baking beans then bake for another 5-10 minutes until it’s lightly golden.
Whilst that’s happening, FRANGIPANE. The lovely almond bit in the middle. In a food processor, blitz the almonds and icing sugar together until you’re left with a small and sweet almond crumb. Now add the remaining ingredients in and pulse a few times until fully combined. You don’t want this EXTRA SMOOTH, almost like a chunky nut butter.
When the pastry is finished baking blind, take it out the oven with oven mits, then let it cool. Add the frangipane filling inside, and top with the flaked almonds. Bake for another 20 minutes in that same oven.
We’re jamming. In a small saucepan, on a medium heat, pop the raspberries in there along with the lemon juice, agave and boiling water. Reduce it until you end up with a sticky, jam like consistency. This should take roughly 8-10 minutes. Let it cool once you’ve got that.
Chop the strawberries into quarters, as many as you physically can, basically the whole box. Then take the tart out. Not your mother-in-law, the frangipane tart in the oven. Let it cool, then smother the top with jam. Now get decorative. Pop the strawberries all over the top alike the photo or go wild babes, it’s your tart.
For fancy flourishes, by Matt Adlard, dip the tops of the raspberries in a little icing sugar and pop a few of those in the mix, as well as some tiny sprigs of fresh mint.
Finally, whip up the double cream with a hand blender or whisk until firm, then pop in a piping bag. Squeeze little dollops on top of the tart, and that is it. This’ll keep for 3 days in the fridge, if you somehow have some left over.
Tip: You may have some pastry left over, but don’t worry, you can roll it thin and bake it on a baking sheet at 180°C for 20 minutes, then crumble it up and use it for topping the tart.