fig hazelnut frangipane tart

fig hazelnut frangipane tart

25 Feb 2024

The front cover of Danielle Alvarez's new recipe book, Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking, features a beautiful looking fig and hazelnut frangipane tart. Whilst I've made many fig frangipane tarts before, Danielle's recipe uses hazelnut praline as the base for the frangipane filling. I was intrigued and decided to give this a try.

I find the flavour of roasted hazelnuts a bit overpowering, so I decided to use a combination of hazelnuts and almonds. My little mini food processor doesn't have enough power to turn nut brittle into praline, so I ground the brittle into meal and used that instead of regular almond meal.

I used my regular recipe and I didn't think the end result would differ so greatly, but it did. The frangipane filling is quite intense. Next time I'd add a layer of fig jam to the base before topping it with the hazelnut almond frangipane filling just to amp up the figgy quotient. It's what I'd planned to do but the figs I'd bought weren't quite ripe enough to make into jam. They were however a week later and I now have 2 pots of fig and earl grey jam lurking in my pantry. If you don't have fig jam, apricot jam would also be a lovely addition.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 10 x33cm recatangular tart. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Fig hazelnut frangipane tart - makes one rectangular tart

Pastry 
¼ cup icing sugar 
¼ cup almond meal
1⅓ cups plain flour
Pinch salt
110 g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cold water

Hazelnut and almond praline
50g blanched hazelnuts
50g blanched almonds
50g caster sugar
1 tablespoon water

Frangipane
100g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

1 quantity hazelnut and almond praline
1 tbs plain flour 
Pinch salt
2 tsp rum

Topping
8 small figs, halved lengthwise
1 tablespoon sugar
Apricot jam to glaze

Pastry
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and sufficient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. Refrigerate the pastry for 30 minutes. 

Roll out the pastry thinly on a floured board then line a rectangular tart tin with the dough. Ease the dough into the flutes and trim the edges before returning the tart tin to the fridge while you prepare the filling. You won’t use all the pastry but it freezes well so just wrap any remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. 

For the hazelnut and almond praline, preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional. Place the nuts on a baking tray and toast them for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. 

Line a baking tray with baking paper and set it aside. In a small stainless-steel saucepan, heat the caster sugar and water over a low–medium heat, stirring occasionally using a heatproof spoon or spatula, until it has turned a deep shade of amber. Add in the nuts and stir to coat. Carefully tip the praline onto the baking tray, spread it out, and allow to cool completely. Once cool, break the praline into pieces and process the pieces in a small food processor until it forms a fine meal. Increase the oven temperature to 190°C, conventional.

Frangipane
Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla together until pale and fluffy. Mix in the egg followed by the flour, salt, the hazelnut praline and the rum. This should form a soft batter. You can also do this step in the food processor.

To assemble the tart, remove the tart shell from the fridge. Cover the base of the tart with the frangipane filling. Smooth the top with a knife. Place the figs on top, cut side up, then sprinkle the figs with the sugar. Place the tart on a baking tray to catch any spills before placing in the preheated 190°C, conventional oven. Bake for 50 minutes – 1 hours or until the filling is set and the pastry nicely browned. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

When cold, glaze the top of the tart with some thinned, warmed apricot jam if desired. Unmould and cut into slices to serve.

I enjoyed my slice with a dollop of cream then the next day I took the tart into work. Despite the absence of the fig jam, tt disappeared quickly, which is always a good sign. 

See you all next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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strawberry ricotta loaf

strawberry ricotta loaf

28 Jan 2024

Before Christmas I reserved a copy of Danielle Alvarez's new book, Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking, from the library. It finally arrived and I've been perusing it on my train journey home from work. I've bookmarked many recipes, but this recipe for a strawberry and ricotta loaf stood out to me. It's made with spelt flour, which is a bit hard to find so I did a wholemeal/plain flour combination instead and I reduced the quantities to fit my handy-dandy half size loaf tin.

I've made a few strawberry topped cakes and sometimes the strawberries can dry out and get a bit tough during the baking process so I macerated the strawberry slices in a bit of sugar and lemon juice to keep them soft and juicy.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small loaf cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Strawberry and ricotta loaf
Ingredients
150g flour (I used 40g wholemeal/110g plain flour)
1 tsp baking powder

pinch fine sea salt
40ml milk
65g ricotta
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
165g strawberries 
2½ tsp lemon zest 
1 tsp lemon juice
115g unsalted butter, at room temperature or slightly warmer (but not melted)
150g caster sugar
1 tablespoon raw sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C conventional. Line a small loaf tin with baking paper, allowing the sides of the paper to extend past the edges of the tin.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the milk and ricotta. Set both bowls aside.

Crack the eggs into a small bowl (do not whisk) and add the vanilla extract. Set aside. Hull and chop half of the strawberries. Place in a small bowl and combine them with the lemon zest and 1 tsp of the caster sugar. Hull and cut the remaining strawberries into rounds. Place in a small bowl, then sprinkle over 1 tsp of the caster sugar and the lemon juice. Set both lots of strawberries aside, keeping them separate.

Put the butter and the remaining caster sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on a high speed until the mixture is light, fluffy and almost white in colour. This will take about 5–7 minutes. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides as needed.

With the machine running, add the eggs, letting one slide in at a time, and waiting until each egg is fully incorporated before adding in the next.

Stop the machine, add in half the flour mixture, and turn the machine on to low speed to just combine. Add in the milk-ricotta mixture and mix until combined. Stop the machine again and add in the remaining flour mixture. Return the machine to a low speed and mix until it all just comes together. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and gently fold in the chopped strawberries and lemon zest.

Pour the batter into the tin; level the batter and top with the strawberry rounds. Sprinkle the raw sugar over the strawberries and bake on the centre rack of the preheated 180°C conventional oven for 70–80 minutes,or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let the loaf cool in the tin before turning it out. Slice and serve.

I love ricotta cakes because they're always so tender with a lovely crumb and this cake was no exception. It was simply delicious and I can't wait to make the cake again using other fruits like blueberries, plums or rhubarb or even blood orange.

Thanks for the recipe, Danielle.

See you all again next week with some baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

jillian

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