This week I decided to set myself a bit of a challenge. So far my magnificent baking adventures have focused primarily on cake with the odd foray into cookies and pastry in the form of galette.
I love making pastry, and have a few healthy variations that I use quite regularly, mostly in the form of quiche. But to date, I hadn’t attempted a healthier version of a sweet pastry recipe. I’ve been wanting to do a frangipane tart for a while because, beside chocolate tart, frangipane is by far my favourite. Then I thought to pair my frangipane with apricot. The tartness of apricots goes beautifully with rich, sweet frangipane, and because they’ll soon be out of season I figured I’d make use of them while I can. But the moment that propelled me to finally stop procrastinating and make the apricot frangipane tart was when last week on The Great British Bake Off (yes I am a Bake Off super fan… it is my favourite show in the history of television, along with Sesame Street and the Muppet Show)someone made…an apricot frangipane tart. I took this as a sign.
When I first started considering the frangipane I kind of thought it would be easy. Frangipane is just ground almond, sugar, eggs and a bit of flour isn’t it? I’d just substitute the sugar with a less processed sweetener, and swap white flour for one of my go-to flours. Simple. Ah… but I’d forgotten about one crucial ingredient. In classical frangipane, weight for weight there’s as much butter as there is ground almond….hmmm… While I don’t have a problem with eating butter, and in fact do regularly, the challenge that I’d set myself was to remake the recipe into an angelic version of it’s more butter laden self. And so the butter had to go. After contemplating a variety of alternatives from avocado (too green) to coconut butter (too coconut-y) I settled on parsnip puree!
I only recently discovered that in many recipes you can substitute oil or butter with vegetable or fruit puree. This does cut down on the fat in a recipe, but more importantly to me it’s an excellent way of sneaking in more fiber and a variety of nutrients, and often you can’t spot the difference in the finished product. In the case of parsnips for instance, by including them you’re adding good doses of B vitamins, vitamins K,C, and E, along with some iron, calcium, potassium and manganese. And while you’re perhaps not too worried about health benefits at dessert, I figure if you can gain in nutrition while still having a delicious and decadent dessert, then why not? Plus it’s just really fun to see what weird and wonderful things you can come up with when you start experimenting.
As for the pastry I went for a mix of oat and brown rice flour, and dates to sweeten and bind it together. Rice flour is lovely in pastry. Because it’s gluten free it helps to give the characteristically crumbly texture you’d hope for in short crust.
Frangipane is wonderful, and can be used in so many different recipes and in zillions of combinations. Now that I’ve come up with a frangipane recipe that I’m pleased with, the sky’s the limit!
- 100g gluten free oats, ground into flour
- 100g brown rice flour
- 3 large dates, medjool if possible
- 80mL hot water
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil, or oil of your choice
- 100g parsnip puree
- 100g honey
- 100g ground almonds
- 75g oats, ground into flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 eggs, beaten.
- 5-6 fresh apricots, stoned, halved and sliced thinly
- 1/2 Tbsp honey dissolved in a splash of hot water
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and lightly grease a 23cm tart tin.
- Put the dates into a small jug, and cover with the hot water. Set aside to soak for a few minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix the oat and rice flours together until well combined.
- Once the dates have soaked for about 5 minutes, blitz them until there are only small flecks of the date left. Pour the date liquid and the oil over the flour and mix it around with your fingers, squashing it together to bring it into a dough. Tip it out onto a counter and knead it for a few minutes. The dough will be quite firm, but will not be elastic enough to roll out.
- Crumble the dough into the tart tin and use your fingers to press it into the bottom and up the sides to create an even pie crust. Pay particular attention to the corners, try and avoid having a thick ridge there. Trim off any excess dough evenly at the top of the tin to create a neat edge. Set aside
- In a separate bowl, mix together the parsnip puree and the honey until it’s smooth and even. Add the almonds, oats, baking soda and almond extract and beat well and then beat in the eggs.
- Pour the frangipane into the pastry and even out the surface.
- Arrange the apricots around the surface of the tart in a pattern that you like, and place the tart into the center of the oven.
- Bake for 25-35 minutes, until the crust looks golden and the apricots are cooked through and starting to brown a bit at the edges.
- Remove from the heat and leave it to cool on a wire rack.
- Once it’s cooled, brush the apricots with the honey water mixture to glaze.
- To make the parsnip puree, place 5 or 6 large, washed parsnips in a roasting tray, cover with tin foil and place it in a 200 degree Celsius oven for about 30 minutes, until the parsnips are very soft. Remove them from the oven and allow to cool. Once cooled, slice the parsnips open lengthwise and peel the skins off. Place the peeled flesh into a blender and and blitz until very smooth. It will almost look like soft butter.