Plum cake-tart This is a gorgeous pud to make with the last of this season’s Victoria plums. It’s a cake-style filling in a crisp pastry case, equally good for tea-time or supper. Based on a Waitrose recipe. Serves 4. One pack of shortcrust pastry (or make your own, as I do, with 175g plain flour, 125g unsalted butter, 60g icing sugar and the yolk of 1 egg) Approx 400g Victoria plums (weight before stoning) Cake filling: 150g unsalted butter 150g sugar (vanilla sugar if possible – see note below) 3 eggs 75g ground almonds 75g self-raising flour plus ½ tsp baking powder Optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract if not using vanilla sugar Apricot jam to glaze, mixed approx half and half with hot water You will need a 23cm tart tin with removable base. Make the pastry as usual (rub butter into flour till like breadcrumbs, then add sugar and egg-yolk – or whizz the lot in a food processor; leave to rest at least 2 hours in fridge or overnight if you can). Or use ready-made pastry. Roll it out and line your tart tin. Preheat the oven to 200°C, then bake blind for 10 mins until coloured (cover the pastry with greaseproof paper and baking beans, if you have them. Take the pastry case out and leave to cool a little while you make the filling. To make the filling, mix the cake ingredients in the order given: butter and sugar first; then add the eggs with the flour and almonds plus vanilla extract if required. If you are using vanilla sugar you won’t want vanilla extract too. [Note: it’s easy to make vanilla sugar, which gives a lovely flavour to lots of cakes and puds. Just store a couple of vanilla pods in a tall jam-jar covered with caster sugar. It will keep for ages (years!) and you just top up the sugar when you need to.] Pour this cake mix (fairly stiff) into the pastry case. Prepare the plums: wash them if necessary; take out the stones and quarter them. Arrange them on top of the cake mix; they will sink into the mix when it’s cooked. Preheat your oven to 180°C and bake the cake-tart for about 30 to 30 mins until golden brown and puffy. Take it out; glaze with the apricot jam and serve at room temperature. © Jane Chittenden for Future Radio September 2013
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 17:36:51 +0000
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