Ooh peachy

I thought I’d share this recipe as I took the tart to some friends for dessert and it went down very well. I just love cooking more seasonal foods, and currently peaches and nectarines are abundant.

Unusually for me, I made the pastry, as I have to admit I don’t normally make pastry, I would buy the ready made packets, but I wanted to try this out. You need to leave the pastry to rest for 20 minutes in the fridge.

First mix 175g of plain flour, a pinch of salt, 125g chilled unsalted butter, and 25g of castor sugar together until they feel crumbly like bread crumbs. Then mix in a whisked egg yolk with a knife and add a couple of dessert spoons of cold water. Keep the white, as we will use that later. The egg and the water is Just to pull it together. Kneed it for a couple of minutes then wrap it in cling film and pop it in the fridge to rest.

Whilst this is resting cut 4 peaches or nectarines into 6 segments and simmer in 200ml of sweet wine, 100ml of water and 100g of castor sugar, along with the juice of a lemon. If you don’t have sweet wine, you could use a flavoured liqour like limoncello, if so I would say reduce the quantity to 150ml, and add 150ml of water. It only needs to simmer for about 10 minutes, just while the fruit softens slightly and imparts some flavour.

Once this is done take them out of the liquid with a slotted spoon, and let them cool down on a plate. Continue to simmer the syrup until it reduces and thickens slightly, it is now a beautiful shade of pink and orange. You will use this to coat on the top of the tart once it comes out of the oven.

Now line a tin, about 22/24 cm round, with a depth of about 1.5–2cm. I lined it with baking parchment before lining it out with the pastry and blind baking it for 15 minutes with baking beans in it. I then coated the inside of the pastry with a little egg white and popped it back in the oven for 2 mins, this just helps seal it.

Then, in a blitzer, chop up 75g of blanched almonds and 100g blanched hazelnuts, until they are chopped quite small. Mix 150g of butter with 100g of castor sugar until it goes slightly pale, then slowly add 3 whisked eggs. Once these are incorporated you can fold in 75g of flour and the chopped nuts with the zest of a lemon.

Spoon this into the pastry case and then lay the peaches on top of the mixture, just so they poke out. Bake for about 30 minutes at 180°c . Once it’s cooked, remove and brush on some syrup. I had some left over to serve on the side. I waited for it to cool before removing it from the tin. It was very peachy.