When you’re cooking for a crowd, it’s easy to focus on the main event and forget about a post-dinner sweet treat. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with serving up a simple bowl of ice cream, this fruit and nut tart is surpizingly easy to make, but it looks like a real showstopper. Buying pre-made shortcrust pastry from a store will save you a lot of time, but of course you can make your own if you wish to.
Fruit And Nut Tart
Ingredients (to serve 8):
- 1 sheet of pre-made shortcrust pastry
- 3/4 cup of mixed nuts
- 3/4 cup of mixed dried fruit (figs, apricots and dates work well)
- 1/2 cup of unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons of dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Instructions:
- Heat the butter in a pan. When it melts, add the sugar and vanilla essence and stir through until the sugar has dissolved.
- Pulse the fruit and nuts in a food processor (do this in stages if your processor can’t handle the entire quantity of fruit and nuts at once).
- Mix the blitzed fruit and nuts with the butter and sugar, stir through to mix well.
- Line a tart tin and place the pastry in the tin. Use baking beans to weigh down the pastry and blind bake for 7 minutes at 350°F.
- Fill the tart with the fruit and nut mix and return to the oven, bake for 15 minutes until the pastry is cooked through.
Serve the tart with a dollop of cream, custard, or ice cream. You can also add a splash of rum or brandy to the butter and sugar mix as it cooks, to make the flavors even richer and more decadent.
This fabulous tart takes less than an hour to make, but will cause a real sensation when it gets brought to the table. You can keep it in the fridge for up to two days before your dinner party, or freeze the tart and defrost it twenty four hours ahead of time.
