frangipane and lemon tart

The new DH mag finally came in the post. Actually, I think I should have been pleasantly surprised at the speed that it got here. But anyway, what matters is that it is now here and I had loads of fun looking through it. The new issue 52, is all about entertaining, now that sounds like it will be packed with healthy stuff. NOT! On the front cover are chocolate-layered espresso jellies, talk about decadent. And I so want to take a crack at making them.

There is a section in this isse on short crust pastry and a whole spreadsheet with different tarts. My first reaction was, “I am going to have to make that chocolate ganache tart.” To which my husband screwed up his nose and said. “Yuck!” So that idea was out the window. I love frangipanis, they are my absolute favourite flower, so when I saw frangipane and lemon tart I thought, brilliant! I just looked up the word frangipane and it is an almond flavoured cream or paste but the reason that it so resembles the word frangipani is because the perfume of the frangipani flower was said to have been used to flavour the almond cream. Go figure. So there is a connection after all. How cool, dictionaries are a wonder.

Frangipane and Lemon tart was such an amazingly easy thing to make and is so gorgeous so sink ones teeth into. My husband and I were discussing the flavour and because I hadn’t used frangipani blossoms to add to the almond paste it really is quite mild, almost something that you can’t quite put your finger on, but definitely worth another bite. The short crust pastry, which of course you have to make, is divine, so buttery, so crispy, so delicious!

The How to Cook Short Crust Pastry section starts on page 54 of DH mag issue 52. Although it takes a little while to make, taking it in and out of the fridge and oven the basic principle is quite simple. Using a food processor makes the whole progression a cinch. Pop the butter, flour, icing sugar, of which I didn’t have any so I just used raw sugar, egg yolks and iced water into the lovely mixing machine, let it do its thing and whala.

It now goes into the fridge to let it firm up a bit, roll it out and pop it into your tart tin. I actually had to refrigerate it again after I rolled it out and before I baked it simply because it is soo incredibly hot here, the pastry was just going too mushy. I didn’t have one of those tart tins either, so I used my quiche dish and it worked like a charm. Now comes the part I never quite understood. One has to bake the pastry case, which is filled with weights for about half the baking time and then the weights come off for the rest of it. I was always under the false impression that the weights were to keep the pastry from bubbling. This might be the case for some pastry’s however with this particular one, the blind baking, as it is called actually helps the crust to cook nice and crisp. Don’t ask me how, I have no idea.

Now your pastry case is done and on to the filling.

Turn to page 58 and you will find the frangipane and lemon tart recipe. Now I made a bit of a mistake with this one. It calls for lemon rind to get popped into the pastry but of course I didn’t read all the instructions first and got a bit carried away so I had baked my pastry case before realising that I hadn’t put any lemon rind into it. Instead I added the lemon rind to the frangipane and it tasted just fine to me.

Butter, sugar, egg, egg yolk, almond meal, flour are mixed up together to form the frangipane paste. This is then placed inside the pastry case and flaked almonds are sprinkled on top. I used slivered almonds. Then it all goes into the oven again, simply divine.

Now my one problem with using all those egg yolks was all of a sudden I had 4 egg whites just hanging around. What does one do with egg whites? Well I won’t go into details but I tried to make yet another DH creation from a past issue, mini chocolate sponges with coffee meringue icing. Total disaster! I don’t know what I did wrong but nothing turned out right. My sponge was a flat pancake with a stack of eggs congealed on the bottom and my gorgeous coffee meringue icing was a blow your socks off, frothy mess. Ah well, such is life.