blueberry frangipane tartlets
I whipped up some pastry using my favourite almond shortcrust pastry, made the frangipane filling, took some home-made berry jam out of the fridge, bought the blueberries then got sick. I put the pastry and filling into the freezer and waited until I felt better before putting the tartlets together. I used the straight sided 7 cm tartlet rings I bought at Mora in Paris and managed to make 8 tartlets from this recipe. If you use regular 8 cm fluted tins, this recipe should make six tarts.
In Martha's recipe she put the blueberries over the jam before adding the frangipane filling. I made the first batch that way but it was pretty tricky smoothing the frangipane filling over the top of the blueberries.
For the second batch I just popped a few blueberries into the frangipane filling before sprinkling with the flaked almonds. When cooked they looked exactly the same but it was far easier doing it this way, so that's how I've written the recipe.
The beauty of a frangipane tart recipe is you can get away without blind baking the tartlet shells. If making pastry gives you the heebie jeebies, you can always use shop bought but make sure it's all butter pastry. The same with the jam; home-made is lovely but shop bought is fine. Fresh blueberries not available, then frozen blueberries will work just as well or use another soft berry of your choice.
Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.
Blueberry Frangipane Tartlets – makes eight 7 cm tartlets
Pastry
110 g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
¼ cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
¼ cup almond meal
1⅓ cups plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cold water
Frangipane
75 gm (2½ oz) unsalted butter
75 gm (2½ oz) caster sugar
1 large egg
75 gm almond meal
1 tbs plain flour
1 tsp grated lemon rind
Topping
¼ cup berry jam
1 punnet blueberries
¼ cup flaked almonds
Icing sugar
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and sufficient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. Refrigerate the pastry for 30 minutes. You’ll only need about half of the pastry dough for this recipe but the pastry freezes well so just wrap the remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface (I use greaseproof paper) and roll out thinly with a rolling pin. Grease eight 7 cm tartlet tins. Line the tins with the pastry and trim the edges of the tart tins with a sharp knife. Place the tartlets onto a baking sheet then lightly prick the pastry surface with the tines of a fork and return to the fridge while you make the filling.
While the tartlet shells are chilling, make the frangipane filling. Place butter and caster sugar in a food processor and whiz to combine. Add the egg, the almond meal, the flour and lemon rind, then pulse to combine. Otherwise you can make this the old fashioned way, creaming the butter and sugar in a bowl using a wooden spoon or electric beater before adding the remaining ingredients.
Spoon 1 – 2 teaspoons of the berry jam over the base of the tart shells. Evenly divide the frangipane filling between the tarts and gently spoon over the jam. Place 5 blueberries into the frangipane filling then sprinkle a few flaked almonds over the tarts.
Place the tray on the middle shelf of the oven. Bake at 190°C/375°F for 30-40 minutes or until the frangipane filling has slightly puffed and is golden brown. Baking time will depend on your oven so start checking the tarts after 20 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and cool the tartlets on a wire rack. Gently remove the tarts from the tins; lightly dust the tops of the tartlets with icing sugar and serve with a few extra berries. A dollop of cream wouldn't go astray either.
I hope you all had lovely weekends. I spent the weekend in Brisbane celebrating my Dad's birthday and baked all weekend!
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.
Bye for now,
Jillian
They look delicious! And blueberries are one of my favourite fruits! One question: could I replace almond meal with, let's say, flour?
ReplyDeleteHi Andriana, some other kind of ground nut would work best in place of the almond meal. I've made frangipane tarts using hazelnut meal and ground macadamia nuts and they both worked out well. I also tried making frangipane tarts using ground coconut but that was a bit too chewy for my liking.
ReplyDeleteI hope that helps,
Jillian