Plum crumble tart with almond frangipan
First of all, apologies for the delay in this post. Actually, I shouldn’t be apologising… the reason for the delay is due to a new addition to the family, my beautiful little daughter Emma. She came into the world in January, and has turned our world upside down for the past few weeks. I can’t remember my son being as time consuming, but perhaps nature ensures we forget these things on purpose. Anyway, that’s why I have been slow in posting new dishes, you have my full permission to blame her 
I was struggling to decide what to do next as there are a few main courses which I have been dying to try out, and seasonally, they are perfect for these late months of winter. However, it has been a while since I did a dessert and the plums at the moment were looking too good to resist. As a result I took the plunge and decided to make this tart.
On paper, the ingredients look lengthy and the process appears complex, but in reality it only comes down to 6 components, the pastry, the frangipan, the plum puree, the plums themselves, sauce and the crumble. Sounds like a lot, but I managed to make all of the components in advance and assembled them with ease on the day.
First off was the pastry. Ahh, I must just say that I love my new toy… a brand spanking new Kenwood chef. I was debating as to whether to get a Kitchen Aid or a Kenwood and I went with the Kenwood simply due to price, and the fact that not only was it cheaper, it was more powerful (In terms of wattage) and came with a bucketload of accessories… oh, and Heston Blumenthal swears by this as well apparently. Good enough for me.
I added all the dry ingredients to the mixer and let it churn away until it had the texture of bread crumbs. I then added the wet ingredients and let it mix for a short while to combine. Once done, I took it out of the bowl and kneaded it for about a minute before covering it with clingfilm and leaving it in the fridge to chill.
The start of the pastry
After beating it for a few min
The pastry...Done!
Next up was preparing the plums. The core ingredient for the next three stages is making a stock syrup. Now I have done this plenty of times already, so I won’t reiterate how this is done again here, but suffice to say it is dead simple. Sugar and water, bring to the boil and voila… you have syrup. I halves the plumbs, took the pip out and then cut them into wedges. These were then added to the stock syrup and gently poached for a few minutes. Once done, I carefully took them out (They were on the verge of breaking apart) and let them cool in a bowl.
The stoned plums
Sliced up into wedges
Slowly poaching in stock syrup
I then diced up some more plums and added these back to the syrup and poached for a further 10 min or so. The kitchen was starting to smell very nice. I had forgotten just how delicious plums are. Anyway, once poached and now super soft, I took them out and placed them into a blender with some of the poaching liquid. This was then blitzed to a fine puree and then passed through a sieve into a squeezy bottle. The sauce was now done too.
The plum sauce
I then diced up some more plums… by now you must have guessed this was a plum related dish… and added these to a frying pan with some sugar. This was then gently fried until the plums had gone soft and started to caramelise. I added a bit of stock syrup to make it more liquid and blitzed this as well. This was then transferred to a bowl to cool. The plum puree was now done. Simple really.
Diced plums with sugar
Plum puree
Next up was the frangipan. This was dead simple as well and involved added butter to sugar and beating it before adding the egg and crushed almonds. Once all mixed together to a nice consistency this was also covered with cling film and kept in the fridge.
Almonds before finely grinding them in my spice grinder
Almonds after grinding
Butter and sugar
Frangipan done
Lastly was the crumble. My trust Kenwood Chef was brought into action again and this was a simple process of adding the flour and butter initially and mixing this till it resembled bread crumbs. I then added the sugar and the almonds and this was now done too. The book suggests a food processor to make the crumble, but to be honest, the kenwood chef, and I am assuming any other similar mixer, does such a good job at this that I won’t be doing crumble in anything else every again.
The next day, I made a start on the pastry. This had been taken out of the fridge earlier to come to room temperature and I promptly set about rolling it out. You could already tell this was going to be a very light pastry simply by the way in which it was rolling out. It is hard to describe, but the short pastries I have made/dealt with before have all had a similar feel when working with them. I suppose it is all the butter in them.
I cut the pastry out into 10 cm circles and then lined them inside 8 cm cooking rings (I didn’t have any tart cases). I then cut out some parchment paper, and added this to the pastry together with some baking beans. These then went into the oven for about 15 min after which I took them out, discarded the beans and the parchment paper and put them back in the oven to bake for a further 5 min. Once done, I took them out to cool a bit. I then added some frangipan mixture to the top of each pastry disc, which is harder than you think as the stuff just doesn’t spread very well. This then went back in the oven for a few more minutes, until the frangipan had gone a golden colour. This was then taken out yet again and the rest of the bits were assembled on top. I started out with some plum puree and then layered the plum wedges on top of this. Lastly, I sprinkled some of the crumble on top and a touch of icing sugar and these then baked for the last time for a few minutes, until the crumble was a golden colour. Once done, they were set aside to cool.
Pastry ready for first baking
First baking done. Now to add the frangipan
Frangipan cooked to a golden colour
Whilst the tarts were cooling, I made a start at decorating the plate. This is the fun bit for me and involved melting some chocolate into a squeezy bottle and drawing a pattern on the plate. I then squeezed some plum sauce inside the pattern and pushed it around to fill the shape with the back of a spoon. It was now time to plate up. The tarts had now cooled a bit, but were still ever so slightly warm, and I simply plonked them on top of the plate in a strategic location to show off the decorative plum sauce underneath. That was it. It was time to eat it.
The final dish
I have to say that writing this post now is making my mouth water. It was a beautiful dessert. It had all the sharp and sweet notes you would expect from plums, but these were seriously intense flavours. The pastry was a delight… it snapped satisfyingly when you put pressure on it with your spoon and it melted away as soon as you put it in your mouth. Just how a tart pastry should be in my opinion. The sauce went really well with the tart and gave it much needed moisture, and the ice cream I served with it (Just plain vanilla) was a definite must have to offset the sharpness of the tart. If anything, I couldn’t really taste the frangipan as the plum was too overpowering, but this in my opinion is a good thing as I much prefer the taste of plums to almonds.
This my friends is a winner and given you can prepare most of the ingredients the previous day, I think this will be appearing on a dinner menu quite frequently.
Plum crumble tart with almond frangipan… Done!
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