I love cooking. I love watching cooking. I think about it, experiment with it, and all of this makes me think it’s just in my blood. The thing is, I don’t love eating as much as I love cooking….oh, I LOVE eating, but the long process of cooking and inventing and stirring in the kitchen is more satisfying then the actual food at the end, most of the time.
This is a recipe adapted from the Post Punk Kitchen Almond Pear Tart recipe. Never be afraid to “play” with a recipe people, it’s worth it…..sometimes:) Baking is more of a science so it’s not wise to play too much with the proportions of ingredients. Too much of this might make it not set, or not enough of that will make it get too hard, so think before you adjust.
I do like to experiment, and this particular recipe is the second try at adapting this one to what I was wanting. The first try was good too, but it was more of the gooey tart style, not so much the set cakey type.
First I bought a pre-made pie crust, the kind in the roll. I’m not very confident in the pastry making world, so feel free to do it yourself, but for me it’s pre-made all the way babeee.
I baked the pie crust with a few pricked holes, parchment paper with beans, at 350 for about 15 minutes. NOW, one of the things I did the first time I actually would have liked to have done this time, so I’ll do it next time and recommend you do it to if you ever make this. When I put the pie crust in the pie dish I pushed the edges down about halfway. Then when the batter for the frangipane goes in it fills it completely and the edges don’t get over baked. I don’t mind not having that crust at the edge. The batter has to bake about 40-50 minutes so that crust needs a lot of babying to not get too browned. I prefer to just leave it alone, so covering it with batter solves that little issue.
Pie crust is baking, mix the batter. Now, this is called a Frangipane. That’s a French almond cream or paste, a pastry filled with the stuff:) I call it batter. If you want to be fancy call it Frangipane, ‘fran-gee-pan’.
- Pre-baked pie crust (or make your own crust of some kind)
- 6 tablespoons cold non-hydrogenated vegan margarine
- 2/3 cup raw sugar ground in the spice grinder to make it fine, not chunky
- 1 1/4 cup soaked peeled almonds, pulsed in a spice grinder into a fine meal, maybe chop them a bit to grind better. Sift or run through a thin
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- pinch salt (on a grinding kick, I ground the salt in the spice grinder too:))
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2/3 cup vanilla almond milk + 1/2 T white vinegar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/3 cup unbleached flour, I didn’t try whole wheat pastry flour, but give it a try to see how it works out
- 2/3 cup strawberry jam
- Optional – more almond pieces, thin slices or small bits to put on the top
- Whisked the sugar and margerine.
- Whisk in the almond meal
- Add in the milk/vinegar, vanilla, almond extract
- Stir in the flour so there are no lumps
- When the pie crust is out of the oven smear the jam all over the bottom
- Pour in the batter
- Bake on the top rack of the oven for 40 – 50 minutes, turn it every 15 minutes or so…maybe this is just my oven:) To get it evenly baked I turn things.
- When it’s done, set, baked, take out and spread on more jam and then sprinkle on the almond pieces if you want some crunch.
- The best way to have it is after it has completely cooled, even refrigerated over night…but if you can wait, eat it immediately with some vanilla Tofutti or ice cream or whipped cream or nothing…just eat it:)
