Plum & Pear Tart - Renaissance Cake Recipe
Historic version of plum tart with pears, spices and shortcrust pastry.
Ingredients
The Plum & Pear Tart Filling
- 6 damson plums
- 2 pears
- 250 ml red wine/ claret/ madeira wine
- 50 g white bread crumbs
- 3 egg yolks
- 30 g butter
- pinch of fine salt
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon (or mixed spice)
The short crust pastry (if you don't have a ready made one from a shop)
- 3/4 cup plain - cake white flour
- 1 tsp water
- 6 safron threads (optional)
- 1 egg yolk
- 60 g unsalted butter
Instructions
To make the filling
- Prepare the fruit by peeling it and removing the pits and seeds.
- Chop the fruit into smaller chunks.
- Add the fruit to a medium size saucepan and cover it with your choice of red vine (or fortified wine). Bring to a simmering boil to soften the fruit.
- Add the bread crumbs, but only to thicken the mixture a little. Don't use all of them if the mixture looks thick enough.
- Carry on boiling for few more minutes and then remove from the heat to cool down a little.
- Add the fruit mixture to a food processor and puree it until smooth.
- Add a tiny pinch of salt and cinnamon or mixed spices.
- Check that the mixture is cold enough and add the egg yolks and butter and blend more until you achieve a thick mixture.
To make the short crust pastry
- Crumble the butter into the flour first.
- Prepare the saffron by gently crushing it with a spoon in about one tablespoon of cold water. This will make the saffron to release its colour and flavour.
- Add the saffron water to the flour, together with the egg yolk and bring the pastry together by kneading it very quickly.
- Leave to rest the pastry in the fridge for about 20 minutes, whilst you are preparing your plum filling.
- Butter a 8-9 inch pastry tart baking dish and roll out the short-crust pastry between two sheets of non-stick baking paper (this will make your life a lot easier and make the rolling out quicker).
- Layer the pastry dish and cut off any overhanging pastry. If you have a lot of leftovers, you can make a latice top (once you pour the filling in) although this wasn't done at the time.
Prepare the plum tart for baking
- Pour carefully into the prepared tart pie shell and bake for 30 minutes at 180C until the pastry is lightly brown and you can see that the plum filling has set.
- As an optional extra (if you have any plums left) you can slice up the plums to a very thin layers and add them to the top of the tart before it goes into the oven.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!