Amaretto Soaked Raspberry and Frangipane Tart

The thought of making pastry used to spark the fear within me. Making pastry can be so overwhelming and, for that reason, I avoided it in my baking for such a long time. 

Luckily, love conquers hate and, in the end, my love for tarts and pies was just too strong - so I finally decided to face up to my fears.

My favourite pastry to work with is pate sucrée and, honestly, you really can’t go wrong with the recipe - it’s totally fool proof.

The key is making sure it’s had time to chill before working with it - if not, it’ll be nightmare to roll out. If you’re in a hurry, you can always pop in in the freezer for 30 minutes instead of the fridge.

For me, the amaretto-soaked raspberry frangipane steals this show - it’s the perfect pudding for a summer evening; especially when served warm with a healthy scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream.

What you need:

For the sweet pastry:
125g unsalted butter
90g icing sugar
225g plain flour
1 medium egg
1tsp vanilla

For the filling:
4tbsp amaretto
150g raspberries
100g caster sugar
60g unsalted butter
2 medium eggs
100g ground almonds
60g plain flour
2tbsp flaked almonds

What you need to do:

For the sweet pastry:

1. In a mixer combine the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy
2. Add the egg and mix, then gradually fold in the flour
3. Pour out onto a clean work surface and bring the pastry together with your hands and combine until smooth
4. Slightly flatten the pastry and then wrap with cling film and leave in the fridge to chill for at least one hour
5. Pre-heat the oven to 180°c and have a round 20cm tart tin ready
6. Once the pastry dough has been chilled, remove from the fridge and roll out onto a lightly floured work surface
7. Roll out until it’s slightly larger than your tart tin, then carefully roll the pastry around your rolling pin and slowly unravel this over your tin
8. Carefully push the pastry into the bottom and side of your tin leaving some over-hang
9. Place a sheet of baking paper in the tin and fill with baking beans (or rice) and blind bake for 15 minutes then remove and add the filling...

For the filling:

1. Place the raspberries into a bowl and pour the amaretto over the top and leave to soak
2. In a mixer, combine the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Add the eggs one by one and mix until combined
4. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour and ground almonds
5. Using a wooden spoon, fold the flour mix into the mixing bowl until fully combined
6. Slowly fold in the raspberries, leaving approximately twelve raspberries for decoration on the top
7. Once your tart shell has been blind baked, remove the baking paper and beans then pour the frangipane mixture over the top of the shell
8. Decorate with the remaining raspberries and sprinkle over the flaked almonds
9. Bake in the oven for around 25 minutes or until golden brown
10. Once cool, remove from the tin and dust with icing sugar
11. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream and enjoy!