Rhubarb is not something I was not familiar with growing up as a child. I’m not sure why, but we just never used it. In my adult life I must admit the first person I saw use rhubarb was Jamie Oliver. He grows it in his garden and he uses it in so many recipes. Thanks to him I got the bee in my bonnet and decided to hunt down a great recipe. This one is so tasty because of it's layering of not only rhubarb but frangipane and honey which balances out the tart flavours of this celery like plant. I’m rather excited that I have discovered rhubarb and there are definitely many more exciting recipes to come.
For this recipe you can use your own home made puff pastry or store bought puff pastry. If you get a good store bought puff there is no judgment here. Although I do think that home made just tastes better.
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
Puff pastry:
• 250 grams cake flour
• Pinch of salt
• 250 grams butter
• 5ml lemon juice or brandy
• 175ml ice cold water Filling:
• 1 cup almond flour
• 6 tbsp. castor sugar
• ¼ cup cake flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 fresh bunch of rhubarb roughly 500g (I like to go for the reddest stalks)
Instructions:
preheat oven to 200c
Puff pastry:
Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in a piece of butter the size of a walnut.
Add lemon juice or brandy to water, make a well in the center of flour and pour in about 2/3 of the liquid.
Mix it with a palette knife or a round bladed knife. When the dough is beginning to form, add the remaining water.
Turn the dough out on to a clean counter that has been dusted with flour. Knead the dough for 2-3 minutes, and then roll out to a square about 1.3-2cm thick.
Beat the remaining butter if necessary to make it pliable and place in center of dough. Fold the dough up over butter to enclose it completely (sides and ends over center like a parcel)
Wrap it in a cloth or in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for 15-20 minutes
Flour your clean worktop, take the dough out, the join facing upwards, and bring rolling pin down on the dough 3-4 times to flatten slightly.
Now roll out to a rectangle about 1.3-2cm thick. Fold into three, ends to middle, as accurately as possible, if necessary pulling the ends to keep them rectangular.
Seal the edges with hand or rolling pin and turn the dough half round to bring the edges toward you.
Roll out again and fold in three (keep note of the turns given)
Set aside in refrigerator for 5 minutes. Repeat this process, giving a total of six turns with a 15 minutes rest after each two turns. Then leave in the refrigerator until wanted.
Roll out pastry to fit a baking sheet. Place pastry on greaseproof paper on baking sheet and keep chilled in the fridge or freezer until needed. If the butter in the pastry melts it will not puff up.
To make the almond paste, pop everything in a food processor and blend until thoroughly mixed. You can mix by hand but make sure you use good elbow grease!
Evenly trim down the rhubarb stalks. Gently sauté stalks in a little butter and pinch of sugar until they begin to soften. Set aside to cool.
To assemble the tart: spread the almond paste evenly over the pastry. Place the rhubarb on top of the almond paste sideways next to each other-like little soldier and fold in the sides of the pastry. Brush the sides with a beaten egg yolk. Place in the oven and turn heat down to 180C and bake for 40mins, checking towards the end that it does not brown too much.
When removed from the oven dust with icing sugar.
To serve: drizzle with honey and cut
-Melissa