Blueberry Almond Tart

The other day, Sara and I went down to Nashville to see The 1975 in concert. Before the show we stopped in a used bookstore and I found The French Chef Cookbook by Julia Child, published in 1968! Honestly, Julia Child is one of my cooking idols and I was just so excited to find this book.

A few days later, I took a free afternoon and decided to make a creation that I had been thinking about for months. I turned to my new Julia Child cookbook and one of my old favorites Baking At Home by the Culinary Institute of America for some basic recipes.

Note: the crust has to chill in the fridge for at least two hours, so you might want to make that the night before.

The full recipe has many parts and takes some patience, but the result is more than worth it!! (If you want a complete list of all of the ingredients I have included one at the bottom) 

Let’s start with the Almond Crust:
For this I turned to Julia, and used her recipe pastry dough recipe for Tartes Aux Fraises, or Fresh Strawberry Tarts, but included some of my own twists.

Almond Crust:

{ 1½  cups flour / 3 Tb chilled vegetable shortening, /  stick chilled butter cut into ½ inch pieces / ¼ tsp salt / 3 Tb granulated sugar (divided) / 1/3 cup iced water / ½ cup of raw, shelled almonds }

(Julia says to make this in a mixing bowl with your hands but I just used a food processor)

      Measure out the flour. Cut up the butter and measure out the chilled shortening (I put it in the freezer for 5 min before). Add the fat to the flour mixture and pulse to combine until the mixture looks like dough.

       Dissolve 2 Tb sugar and salt in the iced water. Pour the ice water mixture into the dough and pulse a few more times. Remove the dough from the food processor.

            Put 1 Tb sugar and the almonds in to the food processor and pulse until they become a fine meal, just to the stage before it becomes flour. Put the dough back into the food processor and pulse a few times, the food processor will combine the almonds into the dough. 

  

      Place the dough onto a floured work surface and knead it a few times to fully incorporate everything. Roll it into a lightly floured ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and place in the fridge, for 2 hours or overnight

Preparing the tart shell:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Take the pastry dough out of the fridge and let it soften for 10 minutes. Once it is soft enough to roll out, roll it out on floured surface about ¼ inch thick.

To transfer the dough into the tart pan, carefully fold it in half on the work surface and lift it, placing the folded dough in the center of the pan. Unfold the other half so the crust fills the pan. Carefully cut around the edges. With a fork, poke holes ½ inches apart on the bottom of the crust (this is so the pastry doesn’t puff up in the pan). Weight down the pastry with foil and beans or another buttered tin.

Bake 5 min, remove foil and weights, and prick the bottom of the dough again to keep it from puffing.

Bake 6-8 minutes more, or until dough has browned lightly. Unmold shell and cool on rack.

Lemon Almond Pastry Cream: (adapted from Baking at Home)

{ ¼ cup cornstarch / ¾ cup sugar (divided) / 2 cups whole milk (divided) / 4 large egg yolks, lightly beaten / 1 pinch salt / 2 tsp. vanilla extract / 3 Tb unsalted butter / juice of half a lemon / 2 tsp of lemon zest }

For later use: (½ cup finely chopped almonds )

Combine the cornstarch with  ¼ cup o the sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir in ½ cup of the milk. Lightly beat the yolks. Blend the yolks into the cornstarch mixture with a spoon. Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl for later.

Combine the remaining 1½ cups milk with the remaining ½ cup sugar and the salt in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil.

Temper the egg mixture by gradually adding about one-third of the hot milk mixture, whisking constantly. Add the remaining milk mixture to the eggs. Return the mixture to the saucepan and continue cooking over medium heat, vigorously stiring with a whisk, until the mixture comes to a boil and the whisk leaves a trail in the pastry cream, 5-7 minutes. As soon  as the pastry cream reaches this stage, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and the butter.

Transfer the pan to the ice bath. Stir occasionally until the pastry cream is cool, about 30 minutes.

Once the pastry cream is totally cool,  stir in the lemon and lemon juice

Transfer to a storgage container and place parchement or waxed paper directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Cover the storage container tightly and refridgerate until needed.

Blueberry Glaze

This blueberry glaze is heavenly. It’s great on top of toast, ice cream, pancakes, basically everything. Making extra is recommended!

I used the glaze as the bottom layer to seal the tart shell, and as a finishing glaze on top.

{ ¾ cup of blueberries /  1 Tb. Granulated sugar / 2 tsp. cornstarch / ¼ cup water + 2 Tbs. (divided) / 1 tsp cinnamon }

Put the blueberries and sugar in small saucepan. Let the blueberries start to break down, but before the sugar burns, but add ¼ cup of water and stir. Combine 2 tsp. of cornstarch and 2 Tbs. of water in a small bowl to make a a paste and stir it into the blueberries to thicken the sauce. Once the sauce is thick and bubbling, take the pan off the heat and add the cinnamon.

Almond Topping

{ 1+1/3 cups unbleached, shelled, slivered almonds}

Toast unbleached, shelled, slivered almonds in a pan (I used a whole bag— about 1 1/3 cups)

Do not burn the almonds!!!! Otherwise you will get a nice burnt flavor in your tart.

Chop the almonds finely.

Assembly

{ about 2 cups of washed, dried, blueberries }

Take the pastry cream out of the fridge and stir in ½  cup of the chopped almonds. Spread around ¾ of the blueberry sauce on the bottom of the tart shell, and then spread the pastry cream over the sauce.

Arrange the blueberries and almonds on the top of the cake, and top the blueberries with the remaining sauce using a spoon or pastry brush.

You might need to add water to the sauce one Tb. at a time if it is too thick to spread over the fruit. 

Have fun creating your own design to top the tart and making this beautiful summer dessert your own!

Complete list of ingredients: 

Almond Crust:

{ 1½  cups flour / 3 Tb chilled vegetable shortening, /  stick chilled butter cut into ½ inch pieces / ¼ tsp salt / 3 Tb granulated sugar (divided) / 1/3 cup iced water / ½ cup of raw, shelled almonds }

Lemon Almond Pastry Cream: (adapted from Baking at Home)

{ ¼ cup cornstarch / ¾ cup sugar (divided) / 2 cups whole milk (divided) / 4 large egg yolks, lightly beaten / 1 pinch salt / 2 tsp. vanilla extract / 3 Tb unsalted butter / juice of half a lemon / 2 tsp of lemon zest }

Blueberry Glaze

{ ¾ cup of blueberries /  1 Tb. Granulated sugar / 2 tsp. cornstarch / ¼ cup water + 2 Tbs. (divided) / 1 tsp cinnamon }

Topping
{ 1+1/3 cups unbleached, shelled, slivered almonds / 2 cups of blueberries }