Plums ripening on one of our trees
A recent post by Sara on her blog Safari reminded me of one of the reasons I created this blog – to share recipes, whether they are common Western dishes, more exotic Asian, African, Mexican, etc. dishes that I’ve picked up over the years or simply local specialities from wherever I happen to be at the time. I have shared one or two before, but it’s about time for another. This recipe is for a plum tart – we have 3 plum trees in our garden, so most years we end up with dozens and dozens of plums which need to be eaten, some way or another. Often we just eat them whole, fresh from the tree, some get turned into jam and the rest are incorporated into various desserts. With the plums ripening at this time of year and jars upon jars of jam already having been made, it was time to turn to plum tart.
Plum tart is a favourite around here, and personally I like it best with that delicious almond paste you often find in pastries between the plum halves. You can of course substitute the plums for other fruit – we have several apricot trees as well, which usually bear fruit around June, so we sometimes make the same tart in June with those.
Ingredients for the tart (minus the pastry...)
For the almond paste, you need 80g sugar, 80g butter, 80g ground almonds (notice a weight pattern? Well it ends now), a tablespoon of plain flour, a tablespoon of liqueur (plum is best, but you can also use Kirsch or brandy), 1 egg and 1 egg yolk. For the rest of the tart you need plums halved and de-seeded (or apricots as mentioned above) and some pastry. You can make your own, but to be honest it’s easier to just buy some pre-made pastry, which is just as good really (although you don’t have quite the same feeling of having accomplished something). The picture to the right shows these ingredients – note the conjoined plums in the bottom right corner. I’m happy to say that the separation operation was highly successful and extremely quick, lasting a mere 3 seconds. Maybe I should have been a surgeon…
Almond paste ingredients in the food processor
To make the almond cream, start by blending the sugar and butter together in a food processor until creamy. Then add the egg and egg yolk, blending a little more, before adding the liqueur, ground almonds and flour, blending until it’s all well mixed and creamy.
The tart with almond paste filling and plums, uncooked (yes, that is a freshly licked spoon in the background)
Once the cream is made, put the pastry into a circular dish, pushing it into the bottom and sides. Spoon the almond cream into the pastry base, making sure it’s spread evenly. Lay the halved plums on top of the almond cream, skin-side down, covering the entire tart. Put it in the oven, pre-heated to 200°C, for 20 minutes. At the end of the 20 minutes, trim the edge of the tart (cut off the pastry hanging over the edge, if there is any). This is supposed to stop the pastry from shrinking. Lower the temperature of the oven to 150°C and cook the tart for another 35 minutes. Take it out, let it cool and enjoy! The finished product: 
Yummy!
Unfortunately, we don’t have any plums in the garden – your garden seems to be very well equipped 
– but the neighbour has some so maybe if I ask kindly…
Forgot to say that I really like the sound of the the almond cream. Maybe it will be good as cake filling as well?!?
Haha, it’s worth a try at least! And if he/she says no, you could always suggest an exchange – if you get plums, you’ll give a slice of tart in return.
Ever heard of king cake? According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake) it’s eaten in a number of countries, in different forms, but the one I know is the French version, which is literally just pastry with almond cream in the middle (the American versions look a little, well, less appetising). It’s traditionally only eaten once a year, but it’s so good that I’ve been known to make it somewhat more frequently
On top of that the tradition of finding the ‘feve’ in the cake is quite fun – assuming of course you don’t bite it…
I’ve never heard of King Cake, but I’ve seen tortells, the Catalan version… never tried it though – maybe I shouldn’t have judged it by its appearance
I prefer the look of the French one… Maybe you could post that recipe too 
The tradition of putting a bean in it makes me think of the almond we put in our rice pudding at Christmas. In general in Sweden, it’s said that the one who gets the almond will get married the following year, but in Scania and Denmark the person generally receives a small gift – an almond gift
yum!!
In reference to sara’s comment about the almond at christmas, our tradition is whoever finds it gets a marzipan pig. Don’t ask me why. In my family, the only person who a) gets excited about that and b) likes marzipan, is my granmother, and so every year an elaborate hoax is carried out whereby the almond mysteriously always finds its way to her plate. She has no idea. She loves it.
Sara,
I don’t know, I get the impression that some of those cakes SHOULD be judged by their appearances… But the French one is good, and as you suggest I’ll write a post about it (including the recipe naturally) and the tradition around the cake (or at least what my family does, which is reasonably French in this case). It’ll have to wait until I get back from my trip though
Kristine,
Haha, that’s a good story! Shame you don’t like marzipan though, you don’t know what you’re missing
(actually, I’m sure you’ve tried it and do know what you’re missing, but still…) Sadly the tradition that we have just involves someone finding a plastic/clay thing in one of the slices of cake, and he/she is then the ‘king’/'queen’ – so there’s nothing to dislike! Which obviously leads to everyone competing for the slice that they think is the most likely to contain the ‘feve’
I’ll be waiting for that recipe, Nick!
Kristine, I’ve heard about the marzipan pigs before, but we’ve never had them at home. Still, the little present tends to be some kind of ornament that is more appealing to grannies than to the rest of us
I wouldn’t mind getting a marzipan pig this Christmas, and I’d be really happy if my whole family made an effort to make the almond end up on my plate! Hahaha 
[...] 16, 2008 by Nick A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a plum tart I made, which started a discussion (look at the comments on the plum tart post) about the tradition [...]