Plum and Almond Thanksgiving Tart

Happy Thanksgiving!  This week I celebrated my 4th Canadian Thanksgiving!  For me I love having the long weekend in October after what usually is a crazy back-to-school time in September and by this point having a weekend off is great news!  This year we spent the dinner at Jonathan's cousins house, celebrating Thanksgiving and a birthday in one meal!

I wanted to bake something to match the season and there was something I had been wanting to try for a while.  In a small 'Dessert' recipe book from my Grandma was a recipe for Plum and Almond Tart.  I had originally wanted to make it for a church lunch event but decided it a) might not slice into small squares well, and b) would probably be better warm so I had to wait.

Living a busy life with just the two of us - it is hard to justify baking a big cake or dessert without a reason - should we REALLY finish off a big cake just for ourselves in a regular week?  Maybe yes but likely no!!

So I had to wait until now to experiment with this recipe.

As the recipe was from a book and not the internet I scanned in the original page so you can see the recipe and get an idea of what the picture looked like (hopefully the scan is okay to view).

Double click for a bigger view of this picture - hopefully
you can read the recipe - let me know if you
want more details!

This was a FUN recipe to make.  Again, as in my Cherry Bakewell Tart post I made my own pastry.  I believe ready-made sweetcrust pastry is easier to find in English supermarkets but not here in Canadian grocery stores!  And so instead of searching multiple shops I decided it probably would be quicker just to make my own.  I tried Anna Olson's method of making pastry, rubbing the butter and flour between my hands, almost flattening it to create layers of butter within the pastry.  Seemed to work really well!  Thanks Anna!

I did omit the brandy from the recipe - didn't want to include this strong flavour in my tart as I LOVE the almond flavour so wanted to make sure that shone through.

After making the almond paste I was a little worried that there wouldn't be enough to fill up around the plums which definitely seemed bigger than the original picture in the recipe book.  Hmmm.  Surprising to me was the way it did fill up and puff around the plums.  It became slightly spongey whilst still being moist.  A different texture than I had baked before but with the almond flavour it tasted really good!  

Post-oven!

Pre-oven...

Enjoy this tart warm with whipped cream... I certainly did!

Happy Thanksgiving!