Plum and chocolate frangipane

Ingredients

Pastry

• 225g plain flour, plus extra to dust
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 100g cold salted butter, cubed, plus extra for greasing
• 1 medium free-range egg, beaten
• water as required

Filling

• 275g ground almonds
• 200g unsalted butter
• 175g light brown muscovado sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• ½ lemon, zest
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 3 tbsp plain white flour
• 100g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa)
• 4-5 plums, sliced into thin wedges

Equipment

• 24in flan dish

Method

1. To make the pastry, sift the flour into the bowl and add the icing sugar. Rub the butter in with the flour until you have a bread-crumb like texture. Using a dull knife mix in the beaten egg until it starts to bind together. If the mixture is not combining then slowly add water until you can form into a bowl. Refrigerate the pastry for at least 30 minutes.
2. Roll out the pastry large enough to cover the flan dish (tip roll between two sheets of cling film, this helps with preventing the pastry from sticking, and you can also use the cling to manoeuvre the pastry over the flan dish). Refrigerate the pastry case for 30 minutes.
3. Pre-heat the over to 180 degC
4. Prick the pastry case with a fork, then line with baking parchment and fill with baking beans (or alternatively rice or crumpled foil). Blind bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Then remove the parchment and baking beans, and cook for a further 5 minutes until golden and biscuity. Leave pastry case to cool before adding filling.
5. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Whisk/beat in the eggs, lemon zest and vanilla. Fold in the flour and ground almonds. Melt the chocolate over a bain-marie and then fold into the mixture.
6. Add the mixture to the pastry case and add the sliced plum wedges in a spiral on top of the mixture. Bake for 35 minutes, until centre of tart is firm. Leave it to cool completely.