A crumbly pastry base, topped with juicy poached peaches and a squidgy-but-slightly chewy frangipane topping. This Peach and Almond Tart is divine.
Every time I make this for dessert, I always have to make an extra mini tart.
Why?
Because once it’s comes out of the oven, the gorgeous almondy smell draws us in and we have to have some straightaway.
That mini-tart prevents a shameful presentation of a half-eaten peach tart after dinner.
I encourage you to do the same.
Just sayin.
We’re starting to see a lot of peaches in the shops in the UK now. Whilst most of them are good, I still keep finding myself with punnets of rock hard ones.
If you find you have the same problem, then this is a fabulous recipe to use them up, whilst adding juicy, sweet flavour to them.
If your husband accidently comes home with a punnet of nectarines, instead of peaches, then this recipe works for them too.
Yes, there a couple of stray nectarines in my tart!
I first starting making this recipe a couple of years ago. It was based on a Peach Tart recipe from the BBC Good Food website, which seems to have disappeared.
I’ve adapted the original recipe a little over the years. The main one being that I no longer bother to make my own sweet pastry for the base. Sometimes life just feels too short to make your own pastry.
You can also swap out the peaches/nectarines for plum or apricots, even stoned cherries would work. I wouldn’t bother to poach the cherries though.
Thinking about it, that would actually be a shame as that would mean no leftover poaching liquor to turn into cocktails.
Serve with homemade custard or cream.
The Peach and Almond Tart Recipe:
Peach and Almond Tart Recipe
Ingredients
- 640 g ready-rolled short crust pastry (2x 320g/11.25oz rolls)
Peaches:
- 8 peaches sliced in half with stones removed (make sure they’re not too ripe or you won’t be able to remove the stone)
- 200 g golden caster sugar
- 240 ml boiling water from the kettle
- 1 vanilla pod cut in half lengthways (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
- 2 tbsp Amaretto
Frangipane:
- 120 g unsalted butter, softened
- 130 g golden caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 120 g ground almonds (almond meal)
To finish:
- 2 tbsp apricot jam or rindless marmalade
- 2 tbsp flaked Almonds
- Thick cream to serve.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190c/375f. Place the peaches cut side-down in a large oven-proof dish. Mix the caster sugar, boiling water, cut vanilla pod and amaretto in a jug until the sugar has dissolved, then pour the mixture over the peaches. Cover the dish with tinfoil and cook in the oven for 20 minutes (5 minutes longer if your peaches are really hard). Take out the oven, remove the foil and leave to cool in the dish.
- For the frangipane, place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat it together with a wooden spoon for a couple of minutes – until it goes paler. Stir in the eggs until mixed, then stir in the ground almonds. Place in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
- Once the peaches have cooled, turn the oven down to 160c/320f. Line a 30cm flan tin with the short crust pastry. Trim the edges until they’re flush with the edge of the pan (I needed two sheets to cover the whole tin completely).
- Take one of the peaches out of the cooking liquor and dab is slightly on a kitchen towel to remove excess moisture. Place, cut side down in the uncooked pastry case. Repeat with the remaining peaches. You can discard the cooking liquor (or save it in a clean jar - it makes a great cocktail with some vodka, ice and lemonade/soda water…..).
- Once all the peaches are arranged in the pastry case, use a teaspoon to dot blobs of the frangipane around the peaches – make sure you use it all.
- Place in the oven to cook for 45-55 minutes – until dark golden brown.
- Take out of the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Then place the apricot jam or marmalade in a bowl with a teaspoon of water and microwave it for a few second to loosen it up. Give it a mix, then brush it all over the tart. Sprinkle the almonds on top, then remove from the flan case and serve with thick cream.
- Serve warm or cold – it tastes amazing either way.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Tasty flavors, but after making this recipe and then using other frangipane tart recipes, I would make some changes to this one, as this tart got soggy fast.
1) Pastry crust should blind baked first. This really helped to avoid the soggy bottom!
2) Skip poaching the peaches unless they are really hard. I lost no flavors using ripe-ish fresh fruit and it was a lot easier
3) Place frangipane on top of pastry crust first, and the place fruit on the top. I also cut the fruit into smaller pieces.
Thanks
Delicious tart but not blind baking the pastry first led to a soggy bottom. Yo will regret it if you don’t.
Reading one of the other comments, thought I would say. I have made this with bought Gluten Free Pastry and it is gorgeous, definitely worth making.
Nice combination, looks tasty and delicious (y) :9
I love it!
Thanks denada 🙂
Love the flavor combination here! Wonder if I could try and make it gluten free..
Absolutely! It’s only the pastry that contains the gluten, so if you have a good GF pastry recipe then I bet it’d work great. At a push, you could even try whizzing up some GF shortbread biscuits with a little butter and pressing it into the tart case – a little like a thin cheesecake base.
Oh my…. this looks amazing! So I’m not sure of the ready made shortcrust pastry. Would love to try this, love the topping too with the ground almonds. Winner!
Thanks Loretta. Yeah, I’ve made my own sweet shortcrust for this tart in the past, and it was really lovely, but I also makes the whole process quite long. If I had plenty of time, I’d go with a homemade sweet shortcrust that includes almond meal. When I’ve got less time, then I’m all for the ready-made stuff 🙂