
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:
- Preheat oven to 180°C.
- Slice peaches into wedges (6-8 per peach).
- In a medium bowl, toss peach slices with caster sugar, cornflour, seeds scraped from the vanilla pod, and crushed cardamom seeds.
- Pile sliced peaches into pre-cooked pastry crust and dust heavily with icing sugar.
- 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.
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:
- Place the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- 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.
- Tip the dough onto the bench and shape it into a ball.
- Roll out to fit a 24cm tart tin.
- Chill for 30 minutes.
- Bake the pastry blind (as above) until golden, then cool.
Note: for a savoury pastry, omit the sugar.