Apricot-pistachio tart

This weekend I bought 1 kg of apricots. I realized I couldn't just eat 1 kg of apricots on my own so I thought of something to make with them. I realized my favorite apricot dessert was tarts so I decided to go for that. But I didn't want just a simple apricot tart. I had read some recipes where they were saying that pistachios match well with apricots so I went for an apricot-pistachio tart.

For this recipe you need a sweetcrust dough (first time for me, I like it but I prefer shortcrust), a pistachio-almond cream (very easy to make) and lots of apricots. Last summer I had made pistachio paste from scratch and kept it in the freezer. This was actually perfect for this recipe as I had it ready-to-use and I was also happy to use it for something :-D

If you don't like pistachios, you can just skip them in the recipe and you'll have an apricot-almond tart instead, which is equally good. Replace the chopped pistachios with almonds et voila. Bon app!

Apricot-pistachio tart recipe (for 6-8 p)

Sweetcrust dough (pâte sucrée)

100 g butter (room T°)
130 g powder sugar
1 egg
250 g flour

Whip up the butter. Add sugar and whip (cream it). Add the egg and mix. Finally add the flour, mix fast and make the dough. Cover it and refrigerate for about 30 min.

Almond-pistachio cream

100 g butter (room T°)
100 g sugar
2 eggs
100 g ground almonds
*50 g pistachio paste (commercial or home-made)

Whip up butter along with sugar. Add eggs one by one while beating. Add the ground almonds and mix. Add the pistachio paste and mix well.

0.8-1 kg apricots
some powder sugar
some pistachios

the apricot tart step-wise

Take out the dough from the fridge and roll it out to approx. 5 mm thickness. Transfer to a 22 cm tart pan (that has been buttered and flowered). Pinch it with a fork. Spread the almond-pistachio cream on the dough. Add apricots cut in halves. Bake in the oven 1hr at 180 C°.

Decorate the tart with some powder sugar and chopped pistachios. Enjoy it warm or cold!

*I make my own pistachio paste, the recipe is here

Rhubarb walnut muffins

The rhubarb season is alas drawing to an end. To enjoy the last few sticks I could find at the supermarket, I made rhubarb walnut muffins, a recipe that I found on the web and liked very much. Well to tell the truth, I had also just bought a new muffin pan, so I wanted to use it :-D

These muffins are moist and the combo rhubarb-walnut-cinnamon is excellent! These muffins make a great dessert, snack, or even breakfast if you like. They're super easy to make and you can enjoy them straight out of the oven :-) Enjoy !!!

A nice rhubarb muffin...

...mmm it's so good...

...that I already ate it up :-D

Recipe for 10 rhubarb walnut muffins

Dough:

3.6 dl flour
1.8 dl brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
0.6 dl canola oil
1 egg
1.2 dl buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla sugar

3 dl chopped rhubarb (1-2 sticks)
1.2 dl chopped walnuts

Topping:

1.2 dl brown sugar
0.6 dl chopped walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix until moist. Add the rhubarb and chopped walnuts. Divide the dough into muffin forms (I use 2 paper forms - 1 inner white and 1 outer colorful for decoration - and a muffin pan to make sure the muffins don't flatten while in the oven). Sprinkle the sugar-walnut mix on the muffin dough and bake in the oven at 175C approx. 25 min.

Reference: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-best-of/rhubarb-walnut-muffins-recipe/index.html