Des pêches pour moi, des pêches pour toi – Tartelettes aux pêches vanillées et grillées sur crème patissière parfumée à l’amande

peachtart4webpeachtart2web

That was the dessert part of the dinner when my friend came over.  Originally I wanted to make the traditional tarte aux fraises, strawberry tart with vanilla custard (crème patissière). Then I had those beautiful yellow peaches, and it had been such a long time, I did not make a peach tart. So peach tart it was going to be. Eventhough I prefer to make savory dishes than bake, fruit desserts are one of my favorites.

Soon, peach season will be over, and we’ll start to find those mushy, frozen peaches with an insipid flavor and with a brownish color, don’t you hate it? It’s beautiful from the outside, and when you bite in it, you just want to spit it out. I still haven’t figured out how to detect from the outside that a peach will be mushy when you open it up.

It’s a very almond tart, the crust has almond meal and the crème patissière is flavored with almond, so if you like almond flavor, you’ll love this tart.

So far, in San Francisco, I haven’t see the color of summer, so hopefully fall will be my summer, and more tarts are coming this way…I don’t think there is a season for tarts, they’re perfect to consume all year round.

I don’t know if this is available in the US, but I brought from France some vanilla bean powder. It’s basically vanilla bean ground, so instead of opening and scraping a regular vanilla bean, this is already ground, and ready to use. If this is not available in the US, you can just open and scrape a regular vanilla bean.

If you don’t have individual tart molds, you can just use a regular mold.

For the almond crust

  • 1 cup white flour
  • 1/3 cup almond meal
  • 2.82 oz (or 80 g) butter
  • 2 tbs sugar
  • 2 tbs water

For the almond custard cream

  • 1 cup (or 250 ml) milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1.8 oz (or 50 g) sugar
  • vanilla powder
  • 1/8 cup (or 25 g) flour
  • 1 tsp almond extract

For the topping

  • 2 large peaches not too ripe
  • vanilla bean powder
  • 1 tbs honey
  • 1 tbs chopped pistachios

Preparation

For the crust

In a mixing container, add flour and almond meal, mix well, add sugar. Cut butter in small cubes and add to the flour, add water. Knead with the tip of your fingers to obtain an grainy dough but do not over knead it. If you knead it too long you won’t be able to roll it later and it will break apart. That’s the process to make a pate brisée (brisee = broken). Roll in a plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for about 30 min.

For the amond custard cream

Mix eggs, sugar, flour in a mixing container, beat well to obtain a smooth consistency. Heat milk in a pan with vanilla bean powder, and when it’s hot (do not boil) add the egg/sugar/flour mixture. Continue to stir until the cream has thickened, it should take about 7-8 minutes. This cream can boil, since it has flour in it. Remove from heat and add almond extract. Let it cool down.  To prevent the cream from forming a crust, sprinkle with granulated sugar and let it cool.

For the peaches

Cut peaches in 4 quarters, peel them. cut them in slices about 5 mm thick. Heat a grill pan or regular grill, and grill the peaches slices on both sides. They grill very quickly so don’t over cook them or they will be mushy.

Place peaches in a container and coat them with honey and sprinkle with vanilla bean powder.

The finishing

Roll the dough in about a 4 mm thickness. Place in your non stick molds. Place some wax paper on top of your crust, and cook in a pre-heated oven at 375F for about 10 minutes, then remove the wax paper and cook for another 10 minutes. You will have to check the crust occasionally since every oven is different and it might cook too fast and eventually the crust might burn from the outside. When cooked remove form the oven and let it cool.

Fill the crusts with almond custard cream, then place grilled peaches on top and sprinkle with chopped pistachios. You can serve it at room temperature, these tarts don’t need to be placed in the refrigerator.