Stone Fruit Tarts

Apricots, Peaches, Cherries, Mangoes, lychees; its the season for all these wonderful fruits. Usually, I enjoy my fruits in their natural form, as it is; with cooking or baking.A batch of peaches I bought some time back was very sour and was just lurking around in the fridge. I was thinking of ways to use-up the fruits when I saw Deeba’s post about these gorgeous tarts. The fate of my sour peaches was sealed; they along with a handful of cherries and apricots were baked to make these delectable tarts.

The other thing which attracted me to the recipe was the use of Buckwheat flour for the crust. Buckwheat Flour had been on my wishlist for quite some time. I happened to mention this in one of my comments on Deeba’s blog and Viola! my wish was granted! A few days later I received 2 packets of Buckwheat flour all the way from Gurgoan from this gorgeous girl! Thanks a lot Deeba for the BW flour and for all the inspiring recipes!

 Here’s the recipe for the Stone fruit tarts 

Original recipe on PAB here

For the crust

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (I used salted butter and skipped the addition of sea salt)
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1/4 tsp pure almond extract
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp fine sea salt (skip if using salted butter)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
2 tbsps finely ground unblanched almonds

For the filling
200ml low fat cream (I used Amul Fresh Cream)
1 large egg lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tbsps vanilla sugar
1 1/2 tbsps cornflour
2 tbsps almond meal                                                                                                                500 gms fresh stone fruit, apricots & peaches, pitted and sliced                                                                                                                                         Fresh pitted cherries
Confectioners’ sugar

Method:

For the crust:

Preheat the oven to 180^oC.

Grease 4 6” tart pans.

Mix together the melted butter and sugar and blend well.

Add the extracts and the flours. Mix well to form a soft cookie like dough.

Divide it into 4 dough balls.

Evenly press each dough ball along the bottom and sides of the tart pan.

Place the pans in the oven and bake until the dough is slightly puffy and set~ 15 minutes.

Sprinkle the ground almonds over the bottom of the crust.

For the Filling:

Whisk together the Fresh cream, egg, extracts and sugar in a bowl.

Whisk in the Cornflour and almond meal.

Carefully pour the filling on the baked pastry crusts.

Arrange the sliced fruits and cherries on top.

Bake until the filling is firm and the pastry is a deep golden brown ~55 to 60 minutes.

Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.

Cool the tarts

Just before serving, sprinkle again with confectioners’ sugar.

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Since I have used fruits lurking in my fridge and have followed a recipe from one of my favourite blogs, these Stone fruit tarts are heading over to Nupur’s blog for Blog Bites 4