Plum and almond tart is a timeless classic. The sweetness of the plums and the floral tones of the almond complement each other wonderfully, and this recipe gives it a bit of a modern twist with the addition of marzipan, for a fuller and deeper flavour.
We serve this plum tart in our Garden Café, where we offer a range of freshly-prepared cakes, tarts, pastries, sweet treats and traditional bakes each day.
Traditional baking will also be the focus of our Lady Claire Macdonald Afternoon Tea at Gleneagles from 12 November – 18 November, inspired by the recipes of celebrated chef, food writer and owner of the award-winning Kinloch Lodge on the Isle of Skye. To find out more and book your table, visit www.gleneagles.com.
Makes one 11” tart
Ingredients
For the sweet pastry:
180g unsalted butter
110g icing sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
35g ground almonds
½ tsp salt
300g plain flour
For the almond cream:
75g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
75g ground almond
75g whole egg
30g plain flour
½ tsp salt
For the tart:
150g marzipan
7x Victoria plums, halved and stones removed
100g apricot jam
40g flaked almonds
Method
1 First, make the sweet pastry. In an electric stand mixer, use the paddle attachment and cream the butter with 75g of icing sugar. Add the egg and egg yolk slowly, making sure everything is fully combined. Add the remaining icing sugar, ground almonds, salt and flour and continue to mix until it forms a dough. Cover the dough and allow to rest in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours. After resting, roll the dough out until it is 3.5mm thick and line an 11” tart ring. Put the tart case back into the fridge for later.
2 Next, make the almond cream. In an electric stand mixer, use the paddle attachment and cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg slowly, making sure you emulsify them completely. Add the remaining ingredients, and mix well to form the almond cream and set aside.
3 To assemble the tart, first preheat the oven to 175°C. Roll out the marzipan to approximately 2mm. Cut it into a disc just smaller than the base of the tart and lay it inside the tart ring. Spread an even layer of almond cream on top of the marzipan, making sure you leave a gap of about 5mm from the top of the tart case. Arrange the plums randomly over the top of the almond cream and sprinkle over the flaked almonds.
4 Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until the tart is golden brown and cooked through. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Heat the apricot jam in a small pan with a splash of water. Use the jam to glaze the entire surface of the tart. Enjoy the tart warm with ice cream or custard, or leave to cool for the perfect afternoon treat with a cup of tea.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here