Italian prune plums are still at the grocery store and the farmers markets, so I decided to make one more plum dessert this season. A few weeks ago Melissa Clark from The New York Times published a lovely-looking recipe for a Shortbread Plum Tart with Honey and Cinnamon that she suggested serving as a Rosh Hashanah dessert. I was a big fan of the homemade plum jam in the Plum Cobbler Bars I recently made and was eager to try the tart's plum compote filling.
I started out with a 350 grams of prune plums, pitted and sliced them, and cooked them with sugar, wildflower honey, and a cinnamon stick until the fruit broke down and the mixture became jammy. The plum compote smelled amazing and just one whiff made me think immediately of Christmas. Apparently cooked plums + cinnamon = the scent of Christmas.
You make the dough for the tart in the food processor by mixing sugar with flour, cinnamon, salt, butter, an egg, and egg yolks. You divide the dough in half and chill it for a few hours. The recipe says you should use an 8-inch springform pan to bake this tart but I don't have one, so I used a 9-inch round pan with a loose bottom. I rolled out half of the chilled dough into a round that I fit into the bottom of the greased pan, spread on cooled plum compote, put the remaining rolled out dough on top, and pressed the edges of the two pieces of dough together to seal the compote inside. Even after chilling, the dough was very sticky and a real pain to work with. I brushed the top of the tart with thinned egg yolk, used the tines of a fork to score a decorative pattern, and baked the tart until it was dark golden.
The top of the finished tart had a beautiful shine and I was able to get it out of the pan without any problem. I had cooked the plum compote to a very thick consistency and the compote mostly stayed put after I sliced the tart. This tart was my favorite plum dessert of the season, hands down. The pastry was so buttery and had a sturdy texture that was firm but yielded without resistance to each bite; I found it easiest to pick up a whole slice with my fingers and enjoy it as a hand food. I love gâteau Breton in general and this version with cinnamon and in both the pastry and the intensely flavored plum compote is stellar.
I liked this tart so much that I baked three of them in a single week. I ate it for breakfast, as a snack, and for dessert. It might not be Christmas yet, but this recipe is a real gift -- and one that will keep giving, year after year!
Recipe: "Shortbread Plum Tart with Honey and Cinnamon," from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
I started out with a 350 grams of prune plums, pitted and sliced them, and cooked them with sugar, wildflower honey, and a cinnamon stick until the fruit broke down and the mixture became jammy. The plum compote smelled amazing and just one whiff made me think immediately of Christmas. Apparently cooked plums + cinnamon = the scent of Christmas.
You make the dough for the tart in the food processor by mixing sugar with flour, cinnamon, salt, butter, an egg, and egg yolks. You divide the dough in half and chill it for a few hours. The recipe says you should use an 8-inch springform pan to bake this tart but I don't have one, so I used a 9-inch round pan with a loose bottom. I rolled out half of the chilled dough into a round that I fit into the bottom of the greased pan, spread on cooled plum compote, put the remaining rolled out dough on top, and pressed the edges of the two pieces of dough together to seal the compote inside. Even after chilling, the dough was very sticky and a real pain to work with. I brushed the top of the tart with thinned egg yolk, used the tines of a fork to score a decorative pattern, and baked the tart until it was dark golden.
I liked this tart so much that I baked three of them in a single week. I ate it for breakfast, as a snack, and for dessert. It might not be Christmas yet, but this recipe is a real gift -- and one that will keep giving, year after year!
Recipe: "Shortbread Plum Tart with Honey and Cinnamon," from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
- "Not as Easy as Apple Pie: Caramelized-Apple Gateau Basque," June 7, 2014.
- "Wait for It: Gâteau Breton," April 30, 2014.
- "Stoked to Have Yolks: Hazelnut Gâteau Breton," September 21, 2012.
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