Apricot Crumble Tarts with Almond

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Apricot Crumble Tarts – you could serve these as one big traybake like my apple rhubarb crumble slice but these ones are mini tarts.

This was an adaptation of Nigella’s Forever Summer “Summer Crumble”, originally intended for Forever Nigella 4 and the Monthly Mingle Topless Tarts events but never quite made it. I’ve simply lifted her apricot crumble out of the dessert dish and into a pastry case.

As you may recall I was very pressed for time around then therefore this is a shamelessly “express” recipe using canned fruit and bought pre-rolled pastry. I have a fondness for canned peaches and apricots since my grandma often served them for pudding with cold tinned custard.

The most taxing thing to do was fiddling with bits of parchment paper and baking beans to “bake blind” but actually in retrospect I might skip this step in future or bake the cases just pricked with a fork – I think I’ve read Delia does it like this rather than with beans.

I made two changes to Nigella’s original crumble. Firstly, it stubbornly refused to brown so I added some extra cubed butter to help the sizzling along a little. Secondly I heard that a sprinkle of polenta in a pastry case soaks up excess liquid in fruit and stops pastry bases getting soggy.

Nigella’s original recipe says to serve with mascarpone or creme fraiche but I like nothing more than a hot pudding with cold ice cream alongside!

So share with me your thoughts… tinned fruit….? Nostalgic wonder or hideous let down?

Print Recipe

Apricot Crumble Tarts

Makes 6 x 5inch tarts

Servings: 6

Equipment

• 6 5" tart tins or one 10-12" tin
• baking beans optional

Ingredients

• 1 pack shortcrust pastry pre-rolled
• 400 g apricots canned, drained and cut into slivers
• 150 g butter unsalted, cold and diced (half for pastry, half for dotting on top)
• 100 g self raising flour
• 25 g ground almonds
• 75 g caster sugar
• 50 g flaked almonds
• 3 tbsp polenta grain or cornmeal

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 190c / Gas Mark 5.
• Grease the tart tins and line with the pre-rolled pastry, prick the bases to get rid of any air bubbles. Cover with parchment paper and baking beans and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, rub 75g of the diced cold butter into the flour and ground almonds as if making pastry until you have sandy mix. Stir in the sugar and flaked almonds.
• When the pastry bases have been in the oven for their 15 minutes, remove the parchment paper and baking beans. Sprinkle half a tablespoon worth of polenta grain on the base of each tart case.
• Fill each case with 2 apricots cut into slivers (conveniently in my case, I found that a 400g can contained 12 apricot halves...) and sprinkle over the almond crumble mix. Dot over the remaining 75g cubes of butter.
• Bake for a further 15-20 minutes keeping an eye that the pastry cases are not overdoing. Serve with cream or ice cream.

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For an alternative apricot tart, using shop-bought puff pastry, see my Apricot Tart with Honey.