Plum Tart with Marzipan Crumble

Yesterday, I decided to make a desert that I had in my mind for a few weeks. I already had some marzipan which I have bought right before Christmas and thinking that I would bake some traditional Christmas cookies but never used it. Then I was looking around for some recipes to use it and found out a marzipan crumble tart that sounded quite yummy. I wanted to use some frozen plums, which I already bought for a more traditional tart I usually make. They were just waiting in the freezer for me and I really didn't feel like making the same tart again.

To start with, I took out the plums from the freezer to give them some time so that they will be soft enough to slice. I also took the easy option for the crust and used the ready-to-bake tart paste that was already in the fridge. These ready pastes are real life-savers when you don't have enough time to prepare a base for your tart. This is generally the problem in my case with two small children. I mixed the marzipan paste with crushed almonds and the butter in a food processor. I had to be really careful not to end up having a dough instead of crumbles. I had to turn the processor on and off to prevent the mixture form a dough. I used a little bit more marzipan than it was called in the recipe because I didn't wanna leave half a pack open marzipan in the fridge as it isn't really something I use very often. I didn't add any sugar to the mixture as the marzipan paste was already sweet enough. If you are using normal almond paste that doesn't contain any sugar then you need to add some sugar to the mixture. I took out the crumble from the food processor and mixed in some thin sliced almonds. You can generally find these sliced almonds in the supermarkets here. But I guess it would be still very tasty with only crushed almonds.

After the crumbles were ready, I put the tart paste into a round tart baking tray with a baking paper that comes with the paste, made some holes on it with a fork then sprinkled some sliced almonds over it. I stuck it in the pre-heated oven for 5 min. I made sure the paste wasn't blowing up like a balloon so I had to keep it down with a fork from time to time. Afterwards I took it out and let it cool for a while.

In the meantime I sliced the plums, mixed them with some flour and sugar. I also added a little bit cinnamon and about some vanille sugar, which aren't in the recipe but I thought it will add some more flavor to the plums. When this was all done and ready, I put most of the crumble over the tart base. The plums went over those and the rest of the crumbles went over the plums to form a nice crumble top. I stuck it in the oven for about 35 min at 180 degrees (with the fan on).

This was really the right amount of time to bake in this case. The tart was really well done. If I kept it in the oven for any longer then the crumbles will be too brown or burnt in fact. I let it cool for about 20 minutes before I served the first slice.

Overall I found it a very delicious recipe and I would definitely make it again, maybe also try it with some other fruits such as pears. It maybe a good idea if you use any other fruit to keep in mind the sweetness of the fruit you are using. Pears would probably go with this recipe but if you are using apples or some other fruit that is sweeter than plums it probably makes sense to use a little less sugar for the filling. Here is a link to the original recipe on the Epicurious web site.

Next time I might even have a little bit of vanilla ice-cream with it.