or Pear and Frangipane Tart.
The last few days have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, a fortnight ago we lost our old cocker Elvis (he will have his own blog, so stay tuned). Mum's not been well, fears of Covid and hastily bought oxygen monitors, but now on the road to recovery and Dad whooping from the rafters because he got a date for his "jab".
I suffered a return bout of the dreaded "Vertisick" (or vertigo to everyone else) and Andrew was an absolute star and earned himself a Chief Scouts Gold Badge.
So this afternoon, I decided to decompress and bake. Those that know me, will at this point, either take a sharp intake or breath, or started shaking with laughter. And their mirth wouldn't be misplaced. There are more epic failures in my recipe book than triumphant re-do's.
I had my sights set on something with Frangipane.
The story starts way back at breakfast, when I googled recipe number 1 to make sure I had all the ingredients, and what I didn't have, added to the weekly shopping list.
Recipe 1, Apricot and Frangipane Tart.
Shopping trip flipped Recipe 1 on it's head, not a single tin of Apricots to be had, but never fear Pears a plenty. I had noticed a P&F Tart recipe whilst looking earlier so thought this would only be a slight diversion.
Shopping complete and back at the Ranch. Dogs sorted and Alexa playing Grease (small degree of dancing in the kitchen) and time to get under way.
28cm fluted loose bottomed pie dish..... In my kitchen, I don't think so, 20inch victoria sandwhich tin. Check
Recipe 1 asked for 200grms of ground almonds. I had bought a bag but only 150grms - ha !!!.. my smaller pie dish and less almonds - adjust the recipe.
Maths is not my strong point and with some famous chef's words "baking is a science" ringing in my ears winged it !!!!
Recipe 1 at this point didn't advise to blind bake the pastry lined pie tin - so Recipe 2 makes an entrance. This also includes pears.
Rice in to weight bottom, shoved in oven, on to the heavy stuff.
Happily spraying the kitchen with sugar and butter whilst trying to cream it with electric whisk and the timer sounds. Pie tin out of the oven.
Re-read the recipe - line the pastry with greaseproof paper and weight down with rice. Hmmm.. lack of greaseproof paper meant that basmati rice was now attaching itself to the base. Not to be thwarted, empty rice and scrape as much out as possible, return to oven to finish cooking. 10 mina later. Re-read recipe again - prick pastry base with fork before cooking - this is obviously to prevent pastry case turning into something resembling a Yorkshire Pudding !!!!
Now at this point I had a choice, abandon ship or see it through. Perseverance !!!
I pricked or rather deflated the base and having dried my pear slices (recipe 2) and not having any jam (recipe1) lined the base and added what looked like scrambled eggs on top of it and shoved it in the oven. Then ran outside to train a dog.
45 minutes later and Alexa alerted me to the fact that The Tart would be ready.....
Andrew removed tart from oven and we both looked at each other and said "oh !!".
Now, the proof, will most definitely be in the eating, BUT, I am going to take this moment to savour the fact that this actually looks like a Tart !!
and ......
The moral of the story, pick one recipe - make sure you have all the ingredients and read "don't skim" the instructions.