PI DAY 2018. Or is it pie day…? Or Pi(e) Day? Oh my effing god, have I ever mentioned on this blog that I love almonds? Almond flavoring. Almond paste. Marzipan. Frangipane. Almond extract. Amaretto. And luckily, my family’s Italian, so it’s basically in all the things (see posts from December of last year). 

So before we get into frangipane, and what the hell that is, let’s talk about pie crust. Pie crust is important, and it’s something you need to think about when you’re going to make anything that’s baked inside of it. Are you making something savory, like a pot pie? Then your crust needs to be flaky and buttery with a hint of salt. Are you making a caramel apple pie? How do you counter balance the sweetness? With buttery crust that’s cooked through. How about a tart? Tarts are thin in depth, so you want to make sure the crust can be a supporting flavor, here. It might not be the main ingredient, but it’s like a 1:3 ratio between crust and filling, so it has to be good. With a sweet tart, I make sure to add a little bit of sugar into the pastry dough to keep flavor consistent all the way down. 

A common problem with pie crust is that people overwork it (or they buy it already made and rolled out in the store - what the fuck is that? Seriously, it’s SO easy to make this). You can keep touching it, or it’ll just bake into a crispy slab of floured butter, and no one wants that. The butter achieves the flake, so you need pockets of cold butter evenly dispersed throughout the dough. If you touch it too much, your body heat melts the butter, and the pockets disappear. This is a sad, sad day. If you prep your ingredients ahead of time, you should be able to pull together your pastry in less than ten minutes before it’s popped into the fridge to get really cold again. 

OK, frangipane. It’s the fancy AF way to say almond filling for pastry or pie or bread. It’s made of a combination of sugar, almond paste, eggs, and butter, with sometimes a little flour for stabilizing. I also add a little almond extract because it punches up the flavor a bit. It’s origin is French, but it’s traditionally used in a variety of both French and Italian pastries. Do you like almond croissants? They’re filled with a variation of frangipane. I typically use it for a pear/almond tart that I make with both fresh pears and the almond filling, but my mom was bugging me to make something with marionberries, so I thought I’d try this. If you don’t have access to marionberry jam, well, then I feel bad for you. Marionberries are a hybrid of two different blackberry strains originating in the pacific northwest. They’re like the ultimate blackberry, and so, so good. But you can really use any jam you like here. 

Note: this is not an incredibly sweet dessert; while there’s obviously sugar in the crust, the jam, and the filling, the butter and the almonds shine through more so than the sweet, making this something you’ll want several slices of. We enjoyed ours with wine, espresso, and our favorite neighbors. 

Ingredients:

For the crust:

• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, very cold
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons ice water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:

• 8 oz. almond paste
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup marionberry jam
• Sliced almonds

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, and salt, and pulse a couple of times to combine. Cut the butter into small cubes and add it to the flour mixture. Pulse until the butter and flour come together to look almost like sand. Beat the egg yolk, water, and vanilla together, and add to the food processor. Pulse until the dough just comes together. 

Turn the dough out onto wax paper, and shape it into a disk. If it’s still very cold, you can roll it out now, otherwise, wrap it in plastic and place in the fridge for thirty minutes.

Position the disk of dough between two sheets of wax paper, and roll out to about 1/4 inch thick (for a 9 1/2 inch tart shell). Peel the wax paper off, and gently roll the dough onto the rolling pin, and then unroll the dough onto the tart shell. 

Push the dough evenly into the fluted edges, leaving about 1/4-1/3 inch of dough coming up from the top of the sides (I didn’t do this, and you’ll see how it shrinks down a bit as it bakes). You can slice off any uneven excess after it comes out of the oven.

Place a sheet of foil or parchment paper into the dough, and fill with pie weights or dried beans to prevent the crust from puffing up during baking. 

Blind bake the tart shell in the oven for 20 minutes, and then pull the foil/parchment up on one side to see if the dough is still very wet. Add it back to the oven for five more minutes if it is. 

When it’s done, put the tart shell on a cooling rack and remove the foil/parchment and weights/beans. Let it cool on the counter while you make the filling. 

Reduce the oven heat to 350 degrees. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the butter until it’s smooth. Add the almond paste a little at a time, making sure it’s well incorporated into the butter, with little to no large chunks. This will take several minutes. 

Add the sugar and continue whipping while you add the eggs, one at a time, along with the almond extract. 

Add the flour, and whip everything for 2-3 minutes until it’s light in color and fluffy. 

Assembly! At this point, your pie crust should be cooled. Spread the jam over the bottom of the crust in an even layer. Then spoon the frangipane over the jam, and spread that into an even layer. Finally, sprinkle the sliced almonds over the top.

Bake the tart for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is golden and the middle is spongy to the touch. You don’t want to be able to put your finger right through it, there should be a little resistance.

Let the tart cool to room temperature and serve!