Raspberry Frangipane Tart

Over the holidays, I saw sheets of all-butter pastry appear in the supermarket aisles.  I love these as they taste so much better than standard ready rolled versions and you could easily pass them off as home made, just saying...  I was going to my friend's house for a Ladies Night In which involves takeaway, one or two sociable glasses of wine and some dessert so I volunteered to bring the dessert. Naturally, I had a roll of the sweet shortcrust pastry in the fridge for such an eventuality so it had to be a tart.  Actually, this tart was made from store cupboard and freezer ingredients so it's something you can make in an hour without leaving the house to buy ingredients.

Frozen raspberries are one of my favourite freezer staples as you can bake with them from frozen (my Raspberry Chocolate Brownies are proof positive) and they were perfect in this frangipane tart.  When making a tart, the most important thing you can do is "blind bake" the pastry shell.  This means that the shell is pre-baked before adding the filling which results in a crisp pastry that doesn't go all soggy.  If you don't have baking beans, just use uncooked rice or pasta instead, but make sure that you use baking parchment or cling film between the pastry & the baking beans.  It ensures the pastry stays beautifully smooth and lets you remove the baking beans cleanly.  I saw a recent episode of Masterchef, The Professionals where some of the poor hapless eejits had obviously never baked a tart before in their life as they did absolutely everything that you're not meant to do with pastry.  I was in stitches laughing, although Marcus Wareing didn't seem quite so amused.

Anyway, back to the tart.  If your tart case is a little bigger than the pastry sheet, roll out the pastry a little thinner to fit.  Prick the base of the pastry with a fork to stop the base from rising unevenly, and very roughly trim the top.  You'll neaten it all up when it's finished baking.

Raspberry Frangipane Tart

320g sheet of Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
200g Ground Almonds
200g Caster Sugar
200g Butter, very soft
2 Eggs, beaten
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
2 tbsp Raspberry Jam
100g Raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat your oven to 180c/Gas Mark 6.

Line a 10 inch/25cm loose bottomed tart tin with the sheet of pastry, pressing well into the corners.  Prick the base well with a fork, line with parchment and baking beans and bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, remove the parchment and baking beans, and set the tart tin aside.  You can use a serrated knife to tidy up the edge of the pastry now.

In a large bowl, or a food mixer, blend the almonds, sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla together until smooth.

Spread the jam onto the base of the pastry and pour the almond batter on top, smoothing out with a knife or spatula.

Now press the raspberries into the batter - pretty patterns or random occurrences - entirely up to you and bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown on top.  I'd recommend placing the tart tin onto a baking sheet before putting it into the oven as it makes removal much easier.

Allow to cool in the tin before removing the outer ring and transferring the tart to a wire rack.

Serve either warm or cold with a large dollop of cream, creme fraiche or custard. Oh go on then, icecream too...