A few days ago someone posted a picture of their peg board on Instagram. Sat in the corner of my spare room, neglected, was the very same peg board which I never got round to putting up. Inspired I thought "oh! I could put that up this weekend!".
Roll on Saturday and I take down the notice board I was going to replace the peg board with only to discover mould behind it. We live in a Victorian terrace, damp is a perennial issue, this was not a massive surprise.
What I should've done - got some bleach spray and cleaned it off and carried on with my day.
What I actually did? Decided that now was the perfect time to strip the wall of it's lining paper, treat it and re-decorate the spare room.
I should note that the spare room is the last room in the house we absolutely need to decorate before we (hopefully) move house next year. It had a weird peeling paint thing going on. So it wasn't a completely random decision but maybe one I should've thought through a bit more.
So in one fell swoop my weekend plans went from a bit of sewing, a little light DIY and making an apricot tart to me being coated head to toe in flakes of paint and paper and with hands stiff enough that I look like an 80 year old arthritis sufferer.
Sometimes I make questionable choices.
The apricot tart, however, was a much better choice. I had bought some gorgeous looking apricots from our local greengrocer earlier in the week on a whim and ever since I have been thinking their lovely perfumed sweet and sour flavour, paired with almonds, honey and the floral woodyness of thyme.
The base of this recipe has come from the massive tome that is the Ferrandi Patisserie School book. This book is a bible of classical French patisserie and weighs about the same as my 2 year old niece (or at least as much as she did before Easter when I last saw her - she has no doubt got even heavier now), but is thankfully less wriggly. The book takes you through fundamental basic recipes for pastry, fillings such as creme patissier etc before moving on to full recipes using these foundation skills. Many of the recipes come with several variations graded 1 to 3 depending on complexity.
As this was my first time using the book I settled for Apricot Tart Level 1 (easy mode) - I was sorely tempted by the more intricate level 2 recipe but that dream was scuppered by the fact I wasn't sure where I was going to get pistachio paste at short notice in a lockdown, in York - answers on a postcard please. Of course I couldn't resist tinkering a little bit with the recipe, namely by putting a small amount of thyme in the almond cream and infusing honey with thyme for the glaze rather than the traditional apricot jam.
The recipe called for a 9 inch tart ring. Mine is closer to 10 and fluted and so I ended up with a wide and shallow tart. If I were to do it again I would probably double the pastry cream and make the pastry half over again to give me a little more wriggle room but if you have the right size ring you will be fine. Of course I will probably just buy a smaller tart ring because when do I not need more baking equipment?
The result was a lovely fine and crisp pastry with a silky almond cream that was the perfect foil for slightly tart apricots and floral honey and thyme glaze. Violas optional but adorable.
As for the spare room - it took me all weekend but I got all of the paper off in the end
Apricot, Honey and Thyme Tart
Adapted from Ferrandi French Patisserie
Makes 1, 9 inch tart.
For the pastry:
60g unsalted butter, diced
45g icing sugar
15g ground almonds
1g salt
1/2 egg
125g plain flour
Almond cream:
45g unsalted butter
45g caster sugar
1 egg
45g ground almonds
2 tsp double cream (I know this seems ridiculous but just use the rest of the cream for serving!)
1 sprig thyme, leaves picked
Topping:
500g apricots
2tbsp honey
1tbsp apricot jam
2 sprigs thyme
Equipment:
9 inch tart ring or tin.
Method:
To make the pastry: beat the butter until soft and creamy, then cream in the icing sugar, followed by the egg, then the almonds and the flour. Combine to form a soft dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured worksurface and knead lightly until it forms a smooth ball. Flatten into a disc, wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 2 hours.
To make the almond cream - soften the butter and then beat together with the sugar until just combined, you do not want to incorporate too much air. Beat in the ground almonds and egg and finally fold in the picked thyme leaves. Press cling film on the surface of the cream and chill in the fridge until you are are ready to assemble the tart.
Preheat the oven to 170C/325F
Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out between 2 layers of cling film until it approximately 2mm thick and large enough to line the tart ring. If like me you do this on a very warm day you may need to chill it again at this stage still in the cling film, if not remove one layer of cling film and roll it over a rolling pin to transfer to the tart tin. Gently lay the pastry over the tin, cling film side up and then press very gently into the edges of the tin. Remove the cling film and continue to ease the pastry into the tin. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes to chill.
Take the pastry case out of the fridge and spread the pastry cream into the bottom of the tart. Wash and dry the apricots and cut in half, removing the stones. Arrange in the tart case in concentric circles, cut side up.
Bake the tart in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the pastry and almond cream and have told golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before removing from the tin.
Whilst the tart is cooling make the glaze by warming the honey and the apricot jam with the sprigs of time. Leave to infuse for 15-20 minutes before removing the thyme. Once the tart is cool brush it liberally with the glaze.
No comments:
Post a Comment