My plan was to make a crostata, but things changed and it ended up as a tart with a peach purée filling. There’s lots of butter involved in the dough and fresh peaches bringing the summery flavours. 

The pastry dough is made with flour, sugar, baking powder, room temperature butter, an egg and an egg yolk making for a flaky dough. This is a really easy dough to make. All you have to do is to place the ingredients into the food processor and pulse until you have a dough! Once you’ve kneaded the dough into a smooth ball, it’s important to chill the dough.

The dough can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for a few days. Just make sure it’s well wrapped. 

Note: I like to have a layer of ground almonds between the pastry base and the peach filling. This will stop the dough from getting soggy. It’s worth doing this step.

The pastry bakes up to a delicate buttery cookie-like base that is topped with a summery sweet peach purée filling. Serve this as a dessert or with coffee. Although I would be totally ok to enjoy a slice for breakfast. 

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Peach Tart

Course Dessert

Ingredients

For the Peach Filling

• 3 peaches, cut in chunks
• ¼ cup organic sugar
• ¼ cup water
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• ¼ tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp cornstarch

For the Dough

• 225 grams all purpose flour
• 100 grams organic sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 large egg, room temperature – save the egg white for brushing the dough
• 1 egg yolk, room temperature
• 130 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 tbsp almond flour (finely ground almonds)

Instructions

For the Peach Filling

• Place the cut peaches, sugar and water in a medium saucepan and cook covered for 15 minutes, until soft. I like to leave the skin on as it adds nice colour to the sauce.
• Add the vanilla and cardamom and stir to combine.
• Using a hand blender, blend the peach mixture until smooth. This can be done directly in the saucepan.
• In a small bowl, make a slurry with the cornstarch and 2-3 tablespoons water.
• Add the slurry to the peach mixture in the saucepan and cook, stirring for 5 minutes, until the mixture thickens.
• Place the peach mixture in a bowl and allow to cool.

For the Dough

• In the bowl of a food processor whisk together flour, sugar and baking powder.
• Then add eggs and butter pulse to combine.
 Turn the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and work it into a cohesive dough. 
Wrap the dough and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
• Grease and flour a 10” pie pan and line the base with parchment.
• Remove the dough from fridge and knead gently to soften it up.
• At this stage you can either roll the dough out on a floured surface, or go the easy route and press pieces of dough into the base of the pan and up the sides.
• Save some dough for a few cutouts for the top.
• 
Prick the dough with of a fork. Sprinkle the dough with almond flour and spread the peach filling evenly over the base of the pastry.
• Place the pie pan in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
• Pre-heat oven to 350°F.
• Roll out the extra dough and using a cookie cutter, cut out shapes. I pressed edible flowers and herbs into the dough cutouts.
• Remove the pie pan from the freezer and place the dough cutouts on the peach filling.
• Gently brush the top of the dough gently with the egg white mixed with 1 tbsp milk and bake in pre heated oven for 25-30 minutes until golden.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool before removing from the pan.