Vividly colored, soft, sweet and bursting with flavor, mirabelle plums are an excellent choice for an colorful late summer fruit tart!
ingredients for 8 generous servings (cost about 10€)
a portion of our basic sucree dough for tarts made with
- 250 g pastry flour
- 125 g butter
- 75 g superfine sugar
- zest from ½ organic green lemon
- 50 g egg (1 egg)
- 4 g salt
- 40 g ground almonds
a portion of our basic almond cream made with
- 100 g egg (about 2 eggs)
- 100 g almonds
- 100 g butter
- 80 g superfine sugar
- 10 g cornstarch
- 1 pinch of salt
for the fruit topping
- 10 mirabelle plums
- 50 g brown sugar
- 30 g EV sunflower oil
- juice zest from 1 organic green lemon
Mirabelle plums, are cultivated in the northern-eastern part of Greece, where we also call them prousts. In Lorraine of France, whose mirabelle plums are notorious, they make a tart, filled with these fruits, then they bake them all together. It is very tasty, but in my opinion it is not that appealing to the eye, as their color loses much of its vibrancy during baking and the fruit comes out of the oven rather wrinkled and melted.
Therefore, in my tart, I preferred to add the fruit in the end – after having caramelized just briefly – to permit both to the eye and mouth enjoy its freshness. Moreover, this way I avoided the eventual sogginess that the fruit juices, which release during baking, would provoke to the tart. Finally, to offer a complexity to the flavor and texture of the tart and also insulate the shell a little bit more, I filled it with a thin layer of almond cream.
So, first of all we roast the almonds. But before that, we need to peel them. To easily remove the peel, we blanch them for one minute in boiling water. We spread them on a baking sheet and place them in a preheated oven at 170 o C for 10 -13 minutes, depending on their initial moisture, we let them cool a little, then we finely ground them in the food processor. We use 40 g of the ground almonds for the tart dough and 100 g of them for the almond cream.
Then we prepare a portion of our basic sucrèe dough for tarts (see NOTE 1) using the amounts of ingredients given here to get about 540 g of dough. After the prepared dough has chilled in the fridge, we roll out to a 2 – 3 mm disc and line a 24 cm tart ring, previously well greased (for a detailed guide on how to perfectly line and form a tart shell, see NOTE 2). We keep in the fridge.
While the tart shell is resting in the fridge, we prepare the almond cream (see NOTE 3 for the basic recipe) and set aside.
We take the tart shell out of the fridge, prick the surface with a fork and place it in a preheated oven at 185-190 o C (static function). After 3 minutes, we lower the heat to 155-160 o C and continue baking for another 10-11 minutes, then we remove from the oven and let it cool for about 30 minutes.
Once the tart shell has cooled, we spread on top the almond cream filling halfway up, level it, return the tart to the oven and continue baking for another 10 minutes. We let the tart cool completely on a wire rack.
Meanwhile we prepare the caramelized mirabelle plums.
We wash, cut them in half and remove the stones (we can keep the stones and add just a few of them when making jam to increase its pectin, but also to provide their distinctly pronounced nutty flavor, reminiscent of bitter almonds). We immerge them in water diluted with the juice of a lemon so that they do not oxidize.
In a pan big enough to fit all halves of the plums, we heat the oil slightly and add the sugar. As soon as a liquid caramel syrup starts to form, we place the halves cut side down and let them boil, until they release their liquids. We then cover with a lid for about no more than five minutes, so that the fruit just softens a little, caramelizes slightly and we can easily remove their skin from the top. We don’t want them to soften too much and turn mushy but hold their shape, as well as their color.
We transfer the fruits to a wire rack, after carefully removing their skin, without spoiling their round shape and let them cool.
Once the plum halves have cooled, we arrange them inside the baked tart cut side down, by forming concentric circles: 12 in the outer circle, 8 in the inner and 1 in the middle (there will be a half left). Then, we return the pan with the caramelized juices to the stove, dilute them with a little water and slightly reduce them again and make a glaze.
While the glaze is still warm, we brush it over the plums and fill in the gaps with the rest of it, so that the almond cream is completely covered. We top with freshly grated green lemon zest.
NOTE: See how to make your own sweet short dough here.
NOTE 2: Υou will find a detailed guide on how to perfectly line and form a tart shell here
NOTE 3: To prepare your own nut cream, read our relevant article here
