Roasted Peach Tart with Vanilla & Cardamom

 Roasted Peach Tart with Vanilla & Cardamom,
served with Raspberries & Crème Fraîche

1 x 24cm sweet short-crust pastry shell, baked blind (see notes)
(for a good all purpose pastry recipe, see below)

For the filling:

• 5-6 ripe but firm peaches
• 3 Tb caster sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1 vanilla pod (or 1 tsp vanilla essence)
• 1 tsp cardamom seeds, crushed (or 1 tsp ground cardamom)

To serve:
crème fraîche or mascarpone
1 punnet fresh raspberries

For the tart:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Slice peaches into wedges (6-8 per peach).
3. In a medium bowl, toss peach slices with caster sugar, cornflour, seeds scraped from the vanilla pod, and crushed cardamom seeds.
4. Pile sliced peaches into pre-cooked pastry crust and dust heavily with icing sugar.
5. Bake in preheated 180°C oven for 35-40 minutes.

To serve:
Scatter fresh raspberries over cooked tart and serve warm (not hot) or cold, with crème fraîche or mascarpone.

Serves 6-8

Notes:

• ripe plums may be substituted for the peaches.
• to bake blind:  crumple a piece of greaseproof or baking paper big enough to fit the pastry lined tart tin, then ‘unscrunch’ it and place in tart shell.  Fill the paper-lined shell with rice, dried beans, chick peas – whatever you have available, and bake the shell for 10 minutes at 180°C.  Carefully remove the beans & paper, and bake for a further 5-10 minutes until the shell is golden.
• note: you cannot use the chick peas, rice etc to eat after using them for blind baking, but store in an airtight jar when cool and re-use.
  

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Good All-Purpose Short-crust Pastry

• 1½ cups plain flour
• 120g cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 Tb caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1-2 Tb cold water

To make the pastry:

1. Place the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add the egg yolk and water through the feed tube and continue to process until the mixture starts to clump together. Do not over process.
3. Tip the dough onto the bench and shape it into a ball.
4. Roll out to fit a 24cm tart tin.
5. Chill for 30 minutes.
6. Bake the pastry blind (as above) until golden, then cool.

Note: for a savoury pastry, omit the sugar.