Recipe for the apricot tart
He goes through an alley of chipped walls,
nosing around in Austro-Hungarian barracks
he highlights a few phrases in blood gothic,
ostrakon of the urgency: Ich bin stärker als Du, Ich warte auf Dir hier in Laibach.
The city that welcomes him is a claim
and confuses when you wander around.
However, it is not easy to understand, you decide and walk, retrace your steps even more, and move from one country to another, but maybe there lies the novelty, a long roaming that inevitably rips you apart with the claws of the dragon itself.
The colonnade hides the baskets
of cabbages, collards and turnips,
and you get ahead
of its offering,
a craving grows, sautéed cabbage,
sour meat,
a taste sweetened by cumin,
the paprika backstitched with cream.
I can't assert if he keeps rambling around,
the movement of the legs, the buttocks,
the insistent flavor of food, dessert,
Cremeschnitt takes you back to when you were ten, the limit of childhood.
The emotion is short-lived.
Choose one of the bridges, again and again
in both directions, it widens
and it narrows as a victim of indecision
that appears and disappears in the mind
like a firework.
For once you sit and scrutinize
the air, the memory of the newly acquired fruit
in the stalls, an apple,
splendid, fills your heart.
Grandma, in German Switzerland,
drank tea in a Rosenthal porcelain service,
and he ran his fingers every afternoon
on the surface of the cup,
punctual, and carried on the fingertips
the little colorful flowers, until he felt at the table
the taste of the apricot tart
on the auxiliary furniture, a domestic emotion difficult to overcome.
So much weakness, family recipe,
It expands like tears for the past life.
Ljubljana, by Rodolfo Häsler (own translation)*
A versatile recipe, I have baked different versions of this tart. I really liked the one with plums and a traditional shortcrust pastry (no almond flour). I always blind bake the crust, use more amaretto for the frangipane and omit the flour addition in it.
Adapted from Diana Henry’s recipe in How to eat a Peach
Ingredients
For the pastry
170g all-purpose flour (1¼ cups )
50g caster sugar (¼ cup)
35g almond flour (⅓ cup)
sea salt flakes
170g chilled unsalted butter, chopped in small pieces (¾ cup)
1 egg yolk
2 tsp amaretto
For the frangipane
35g unsalted butter, softened (3 Tbsp.)
35g caster sugar (3 Tbsp.)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
4 Tbsp. amaretto
35g almond flour (⅓ cup)
For the filling
1kg ripe apricots, halved and pitted
50g sugar (¼ cup)
45g flaked almonds (½ cup)
icing sugar, for dusting
Preparation
To make the pastry, in a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, almond flour and a pinch of salt.
Add butter and rub in with fingers until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Add the egg yolk and amaretto and mix. Form a disc and chill for 30 minutes.
Place the dough in the center of a 23cm tart tin with a removable bottom and using the fingers press it evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the tin. Wrap in aluminum foil and chill for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 175°C.
Blind bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Set aside to cool.
To make the frangipane
Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
Gradually add the egg. Beat the mix continuously.
Add the amaretto, flour and almond flour.
Toss the apricot halves with the sugar.
To assemble the tart
Spread the frangipane over the cold crust.
Arrange the apricots on top of the frangipane, laying them almost vertically and slightly overlapping.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Remove the tart from the oven and sprinkle the top with the almond flakes and some icing sugar, then return to the oven for 15-20 minutes, until golden and set.
* If the English version of the materials is not available, a translation by the author of the blog will be offered.