a perfect squidgy tart

The filling is somewhere between a classic frangipane and a Torta de Santiago  – robust, gutsy and happy to absorb slugs of alcohol.  And that’s the kind of tart we like.

Gadgets & Gizmos

This recipe is for a 22cm tart tin. It is worth using a loose bottomed tin.  I use a blender for the almonds and a Kenwood/KitchenAid K beater to cream the butter and sugar. A small energetic child armed with a wooden spoon and bowl is also an alternative.

You do need to blind bake a pastry case first. and depending on how thick you roll it approx 1/3 to a half a quantity of all butter pastry (which is so pliable and lovely you can roll it to be really really thin).

Ingredients

115g butter (unt 82%)

75g sugar

2 eggs

175g almonds blitzed to be a fine powder but not over blitzed to be almond butter (I’ve warned you!)

55g almonds blitzed to be fairly rough and chunky as we want some texture or if you are trigger happy on the blitzer chopped finely

40ml Sherry or Amaretto

Juice and zest of 1 orange

3 tablespoons of plain flour

1 tsp almond essence (I use the good organic stuff as it does make a difference I think) but if you do not like almond flavour leave it out as the sherry/amaretto and orange will give a lovely flavour by themselves.

500g rhubarb sliced so each slice is approx 1-1.5cm

2-3 heaped tablespoons of a good quality jam – I used a rhubarb, ginger and strawberry one in this recipe

 How To

• Zest and juice your orange and set aside
• Cream your butter and sugar and orange zest by chopping the butter up roughly and letting the food mixer (small child) do all the hard work.
• Gently mix in the eggs to the butter/sugar mix
• Blitz the fine part of the almonds first and tip in to the creamed butter and sugar
• Blitz the more rough almonds and also add to the mix
• Add the flour, the alcohol, the orange juice. You will have a squidgy quite liquid filling.
• Cover the bottom of your pastry tart with a thin layer of jam.
•  Now add the filling.  as its quite liquid the jam may rise up around the outside.  I quite like that – when it cooks and seeps over it looks even more enticing…kind of like a little teaser of whats to come
•  Add the rhubarb artfully.

bake at 180C for 30 minutes or until the filling is golden brown/brown and you can see that the rhubarb has cooked.  I like the way the mixture puffs up and the rhubarb sinks.

Serve with ice cream, with a fruit coulis or with custard.