This delicious dessert is a large version of the individual tartlets served at Racines. The thin, crisp pastry shell is filled with a layer of almond cream made from both finely ground and coarsely chopped nuts that give the tart layers of texture. The thinly sliced apples on top caramelize as the tart bakes.
I don't understand the baking at 400 for 1 hour. The crust is already baked, and this is basically an almond Bakewell tart with apples on top instead of jam underneath. I compared the ratio of ingredients to my tried and true Mary Berry Bakewell tart recipe. It is pretty close to her recipe but all ingredients are about 2/3, which makes sense because of adding the apples. Her recipe bakes at 350 for 25-35 minutes. So I baked this at 350 for 35 minutes and it was slightly over baked. I used a pie crust shield to keep the pastry edge from burning. It seems that 400 for 1 hour would be a burned disaster. Even baking at a lower temp for less time, I don't see how this can be called "almond cream", there is nothing "creamy" about it. Could not taste the almonds - next time will change the 1 tbs of rum to 2 tsp rum & 1 tsp almond extract.
In the ingredients list, click on Baked Pastry Shell and it navigates to a recipe.
this looks great but, did I miss something? where is the recipe for the pastry shell??
So good! I did have trouble with the accompanying pastry, though, finding it to not have enough butter. I've also used pecans instead of almonds (okay, and I admit another substitution - sorry. I used bourbon instead of rum in that case), which is also delicious. I had a good bit of the nut cream leftover, so I saved it and schmeared it on bread and even pancakes, then toasted. Yum.
