This recipe was inspired by a delicious frangipane tart made by a good friend (the same friend who wrote this blog post). I had been meaning to try making a frangipane tart (which I had never previously tried) for a long time and had a rough idea of the ingredients, although not the ratios of one ingredient to another. My first step, therefore, was to take to google and see what other recipes said. Unfortunately, most recipes I found were in grams and I prefer to use cups so I decided to base mine on guesswork a rough calculation of the cup equivalent of the average amounts of each ingredient listed in the recipes google was throwing up. During my first attempt all seemed to be going well until I came to add the ground almonds, the quantity of which was so small in my initial attempt that they merely swam into view at odd intervals rather than being the star as I thought they should be. After a quick revision of my original quantity of almonds (and a lot of making ground almonds by food processing flaked almonds whilst trying to reassure Baby S that the sound of the food processor really isn’t scary) frangipane success was mine! I’m aware that pastry is a tricksy little beast – this recipe has worked both times I’ve made this tart but do use your own if you have a fail-safe sweet shortcrust pastry that you prefer or use a store-bought base, if you prefer. This does make more pastry than you actually need (particularly if you go for a nice, thin base which I did not achieve) so you may want to have something else in mind to use up the leftover pastry. All the ingredients below are based on a 250 ml mug as equal to 1 cup. This makes a tart which fits into a 10 inch diameter tart tin.
What you’ll need:
For the pastry:
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 egg
For the blueberry layer:
A 400gram pack of frozen blueberries
Splash of cold water
1 tablespoon sugar
For the frangipane layer:
3/4 cup butter
3/4 brown sugar
3 eggs
3 cups ground almonds
Handful of flaked almonds (optional – for decoration)
What to do:
For the pastry:
1. Sift together the flour and icing sugar into a bowl.
2. Rub in the butter and then mix in the egg. It may look as though the dough will be too dry but keep mixing for a bit until all the flour and icing sugar have been incorporated (you may find it easiest to start off mixing in the egg with a butter knife and then finish incorporating the last bits of flour and sugar by hand).
3. Wrap the pastry in cling film and leave in the fridge for at least an hour to rest.
4. Once the pastry has rested, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F) and then place the pastry on a lightly floured surface and roll out to about half a centimetre in thickness (or thinner if you prefer and are better at rolling pastry super-thin than me!) and then line the tart tin.
5. Prick the pastry base and sides all over with a fork and then bake the pastry in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until it is just turning golden-brown (not like my pastry which ended up overdone whilst I was busy with Baby S and lost track of time), and then remove it from the oven and leave the tin on a cooling rack until cool. As the oven will not be needed again for a quite a while, you may want to turn it off at this point.
For the blueberry layer:
1. Put the blueberries, water and sugar in a pan on the stove and boil together until the blueberries have cooked, the sugar has dissolved and the mixture reaches a jam-like consistency.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to one side to cool.
3. Once the blueberry mixture has cooled, spread it evenly across the top of the pastry and then leave to one side whilst you make the frangipane layer.
For the frangipane layer:
1. If you turned off the oven earlier, turn it on again to pre-heat to gas mark 4 (180º C or 350º F).
2. Cream together the butter and sugar and then beat the eggs thoroughly into the creamed butter and sugar.
3. Fold the ground almonds into the butter/sugar/egg mixture.
4. Drop spoonfuls of the almond/butter/sugar/egg mixture over the blueberry layer in the tin and then smooth into an even layer with a spatula. If you’re using them, scatter flaked almonds across the top of the frangipane mixture.
5. Bake the tart in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until the mixture has set and turned golden brown. Remove the tart from the oven and either eat whilst still warm or leave to cool on a cooling rack (or, even better, eat some whilst it is still warm and then cut up the leftover tart once it is cool and store in an airtight tin for up to a few days).
