Sue Veed
Veteran
Not exactly a recipe, more an experiment! A punnet of Victoria plums, bought a week ago for nibbling as and when, just weren't being eaten, and looked like going to waste, which just ain't on in this cash-strapped household! While wondering what to do next, I made some shortcrust pastry.
200gm plain flour
100gm butter, cold from the fridge, cut into ~1cm cubes
25gm unrefined sugar *
1 teaspoon almond extract
* a little Moulinex coffee grinder, which wasn't all that good for grinding coffee and was then pressed into service as a spice grinder, is also useful for converting cheap granulated sugar into expensive caster or icing sugar
Here endeth the exact measurements. Everything from now on is chuck it in and hope.
Pulsed in the Magimix until thoroughly combined, then brought together with ice-cold water, added very sparingly, but not quite sparingly enough, as the pastry ended up sticky - first mistake!
Wrapped in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest to give me time to ponder my next move.
Which was to cut the plums in half, remove the stones, and put them (the plums, not the stones!) cut side up on a baking tray in a 150C fan oven for half an hour to dry them out a bit. While this was happening, the Magimix, still not cleaned after making the pastry, was used to blend about 50gm demerara sugar, 25gm unrefined sugar, 40gm plain flour, two large eggs, 100ml of single cream and a teaspoon each of almond extract and vanilla extract.
The rested pastry was rolled out to line a loose-bottomed 20cm cake tin, chilled again, covered with greaseproof paper and ceramic beans, blind baked at 180 for 16 minutes, then uncovered, pricked with a fork and baked for a further 7 minutes. The plums nicely covered the pastry base, cut side up, and were themselves covered with the, for want of a better word, batter, and the tart was returned to the oven for a further 35 mins. Here's the result.
Looks like the plums would have benefitted from further drying before use.
No idea what this will taste like - will report further tomorrow, all being well.
As usual, there was pastry left over. This was used for a small tart spread with cherry jam mixed with a teaspoon of amaretto liqueur. I should have raised the rim a bit more, as this overflowed and made some of the stickiest toffee known to mankind.
200gm plain flour
100gm butter, cold from the fridge, cut into ~1cm cubes
25gm unrefined sugar *
1 teaspoon almond extract
* a little Moulinex coffee grinder, which wasn't all that good for grinding coffee and was then pressed into service as a spice grinder, is also useful for converting cheap granulated sugar into expensive caster or icing sugar
Here endeth the exact measurements. Everything from now on is chuck it in and hope.
Pulsed in the Magimix until thoroughly combined, then brought together with ice-cold water, added very sparingly, but not quite sparingly enough, as the pastry ended up sticky - first mistake!
Wrapped in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest to give me time to ponder my next move.
Which was to cut the plums in half, remove the stones, and put them (the plums, not the stones!) cut side up on a baking tray in a 150C fan oven for half an hour to dry them out a bit. While this was happening, the Magimix, still not cleaned after making the pastry, was used to blend about 50gm demerara sugar, 25gm unrefined sugar, 40gm plain flour, two large eggs, 100ml of single cream and a teaspoon each of almond extract and vanilla extract.
The rested pastry was rolled out to line a loose-bottomed 20cm cake tin, chilled again, covered with greaseproof paper and ceramic beans, blind baked at 180 for 16 minutes, then uncovered, pricked with a fork and baked for a further 7 minutes. The plums nicely covered the pastry base, cut side up, and were themselves covered with the, for want of a better word, batter, and the tart was returned to the oven for a further 35 mins. Here's the result.
Looks like the plums would have benefitted from further drying before use.
No idea what this will taste like - will report further tomorrow, all being well.
As usual, there was pastry left over. This was used for a small tart spread with cherry jam mixed with a teaspoon of amaretto liqueur. I should have raised the rim a bit more, as this overflowed and made some of the stickiest toffee known to mankind.
