Mirabelle Fruit Tarte

Made in the French Desserts Class 

Ingredients:  

sablé (cookie dough): 

175g ( 6.5oz) butter, Very soft but not melted 

Zest of 1 lemon or orange or lime (optional) 

1 heavy pinch of salt 

90g (3oz) icing sugar 

2 egg yolks 

80g (2.5 oz) almond meal 

125g (4 oz) of all purpose flour

crème patissière : 

450g/1lb whole milk 

4 egg yolks 

120/4oz sugar
60g/2oz corn starch 

60g/2oz butter 

1 tbsp vanilla extract 

Mirabelles cut in half  

Procedure:

For the pastry cream: Dissolve cornstarch in 1/4 of the milk, combine rest of the milk with sugar and bring to a boil, whisk eggs in the cornstarch mixture, pour 1/3 of the boiling milk over the eggs, then return milk and milk+egg mixture to the heat. Boil for about 1 minute whisking. It will look lumpy when it starts boiling, keep whisking until smooth then remove from the heat and whisk in butter, vanilla. Transfer to a cold container, press some plastic film directly on the cream and refrigerate.

For the sablédough: Put soft butter (zest if desired) and sugar in the bowl of a stand up mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk at low speed until the sugar is incorporated then increase the speed and go for a couple of minutes until the mixture is fluffy. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl if you see that the butter is sticking to the sides of the bowl. Add the yolks, one at the time and mix until incorporated. Stop the mixer add the almond meal, whisk until incorporated, then finally the flour. Whisk 10 seconds at highest speed after having added the flour. Stop and transfer mixture into a piping bag fitted with a round tip. Preheat the oven at 180C/350F. Line a cooking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon mat. Butter the inside of some ring molds. Pipe the dough about 1 cm high inside metal ring molds and bake for about 12 minutes. The cookies should be golden, not too dark. Take out of the oven and gently remove the ring molds while still hot. Let the cookies cool and wipe the ring molds clean.

When cookies are room temperature spread a thin layer of pastry cream on top, and then arrange the fresh mirabelles halves or fruit of your choice on top. The make the fruit shiny use some melted apple or apricot jelly. Sprinkle with chopped pistachios for some specks of green.