Rhubarb & Almond Tart

This week I managed to secure myself a Kilo of rhubarb ~ for a bag of wild garlic from my garden!  Our lovely neighbour Alison, co-owns the Lancaster Soup Dragon  (purveyors of the finest vegetarian soup) AND she is brilliant at growing vegetables on her allotment, just up the road ~ I love it round here!

This recipe takes a while as there are 3 components:

Rhubarb compote

Pastry

Frangipane

 :but its worth the effort!

Rhubarb compote (stewed rhubarb!)

400g rhubarb    FREE!

110g sugar    9p

Gently stew for 1/2 an hour or so, or until thickish.

Sweet short pastry

175g Butter       £1.13

1tsp sugar            1p

pinch of salt         1p

1 egg yolk            23p

3 tbsp milk           2p

250g plain flour    15p

Preheat oven ~ gas mark 4 ~ 180c

Mix together the butter and sugar, add the egg yolk, salt & milk. 

In my 'French Brasserie Cookbook' it says mix together by hand ~ I did this although I'm not sure what the point of it is ~ maybe it's just for the pleasure of squishing butter between your fingers.

Then slowly add the flour until just combined, making sure not to overwork it. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours.  

Blind bake for 10 minutes.

Almond Frangipane

110g butter                                                                                                        80p

110g light brown sugar                                                                                        30p

2 eggs & the egg white left over from the pastry                                                    46p

110g ground almonds                                                                                      £1.10

25g plain flour                                                                                                      2p

1 tsp baking powder                                                                                              1p

zest of 1 lemon                                                                                                   25p

pinch of salt (which I forgot to add!)                                                                       1p

25g flaked toasted almonds ~ to be added 5 minutes before the end of baking.         29p

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, beat in the eggs, then fold in the rest of the ingredients to make the frangipane.

Assemble ~ I used 250g of the rhubarb compote and spread it over the pastry base. Then carefully spooned the frangipane over the top, making sure the to cover all the rhubarb evenly.

Bake for 25 minutes, remember to sprinkle the toasted almonds on top after about 20 minutes of baking.

When the tart is cool trim the excess pastry.

Unlike the finest tarts on Master Chef, this one did end up with a soggy base, maybe if you used a loose~base tin you could cool it on a wire rack ~ which may help. 

Total  £4.88 ~ not cheap but you do end up with a delicious cake that could feed 12! 

Or 6 people who like huge slices!