Cherry Frangipane! What a delight to bake and eat. It's a lovely recipe and so full of flavor. The filling is a lovely soft almond cake with cherries on the top, baked in a pastry case. Delicious!

Cherry Frangipane! What a delight to bake and eat. It's a lovely recipe and so full of flavor. The filling is a lovely soft almond cake with cherries on the top, baked in a pastry case. Delicious!

We all like to eat a moist cake! This is actually a tart, which originated in France. There are references from as bar back as 1226, and one of the earliest recipes for this can be found in a 1674 cookbook. Unbelievable! Frangipane is the description used for the almond filling, which is mainly made up of, yep, you guessed it, almonds!

There are variations to frangipane, for example, in Belgium, it is called an Almond pastry tart, usually with a striped pattern on top made up of icing.

Some recipes fill the flan case with almond and then put say a 1 cm layer of chocolate over the top. The recipe I am showing you today is using cherries which I had left over from the other day when I made the cherry and custard pastries.

It adds a lovely contrast of colour to the tart, and the flavour of the sweet almond, combined with the sharp cherries is a delicious taste. The bite of the crispy pastry, against the soft, moist almond filling, and then the slight chew of the cherries are also a lovely texture sensation.

I have also made a recipe up to show you how to make your own shortcrust pastry. Of course, you can buy the shop stuff, but this recipe is easy, cheaper and by far more tasty! You can make little flans, but make sure you adjust the cooking times. So go on, give it a go! Try out a recipe similar to what our ancient ancestors were crazy about!

Instructions

First things first! Get all your ingredients ready. I like to weigh out and put everything in order of adding into the recipe, like in my mini production line picture below. If it's all ready, you will whizz through the recipe and NOT forget anything!

Make The Pastry

1.*** If you are using a shop-bought pastry case, skip to the FILLING instructions.   Put the oven on to 190 C, 375 F,Gas 5

2. Make your shortcrust pastry. Click here for instructions.

3. Grease your flan dish & make sure you grease up the sides too.

4. Place your rolled out pastry into your chosen dish.

Make sure you gently push the sides around the dish

and trim any excess pastry.

5. If you see any cracks or missing bits of pastry, use the excess from your trimming to patch these areas.

6. Now you will need to prepare the flan case to take the wet filling. You need to first 'Bake blind' the pastry. See here for more information. You need to bake blind for 20 minutes in the oven.

7. Place in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes (for a 23 cm, 9 inch dish). If using smaller cases, reduce the cooking time.

8. When ready, the flan case should look like the photo on the below left. Say about 70% cooked, and ready for the filling.

9. Once you have baked blind your pastry, you need to get all your filling ingredients ready if you haven't done so already.

Make The Filling

10. Cream the butter and sugar until light in color and fluffy. Slowly add the beaten eggs. If the mixture looks like it is starting to split, add a tablespoon of your ground almonds.

11. Add almonds and flour. Add the milk and gently (low setting on your mixture) combine.

12. Spread the warmed jam onto the base of your pastry. Add the cake mixture to the flan case.

13. Arrange the cherries on the surface. Don't push them right into the mixture. Let them sit on top.

14. Bake in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes. Test with a metal skewer. Stick it in the centre, if it comes out clean your frangipane is ready!

15. Leave to cool then turn out onto a dish.

16 Make yourself a lovely cup of tea and enjoy a slice of your tart.

If you have some leftover cherries, why not try our easy cherry cream cheese crescent roll bars. So delicious and quick to make too!

We'd love to hear from you and what you thought of our cherry frangipane recipe. Did you make any changes or add some other goodies? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading and happy cooking!

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