Apricots aren't always the easiest fruit to work with, but few can resist the delights of a beautiful apricot tart. We invited our friend Lucy from the Pockeredge Pantry to show us her recipe for this stunning tart. Using her glorious Apricot Jam, full of big chunks of fruit, our Matthews flour and ground almonds we make a tart befitting the best French patisseries.

Ingredients for Lucy's Apricot Frangipane Tart
Use a 23cm loose bottom flan tin

For the enriched pastry
250g Matthews Plain Flour
125g Cold Unsalted Butter, cut into 2cm cubes
1/4tsp Salt
2 Egg Yolks
1tbsp Cold Water

For the Filling
A Jar and a half of Apricot Jam
150g Softened Butter, cut into cubes
100g Caster Sugar
100g Ground Almonds
100g Matthews Plain Flour
2 Eggs
50g Flaked Almonds

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C

Start by making the pastry, which you can do well in advance as it needs a good 15 minutes to chill in the fridge. If you have a food processor, great, use that. If not, just use your hands.....old school.

Mix the butter, flour and salt together until you have a mix that looks like breadcrumbs. Add in the 2 egg yolks and mix again. You will get clumpy bits but it needs the tablespoon of water to bring the dough together. So add in the water, mix again until it forms a nice dough. Wrap it and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Roll out the pastry to a thickness of a pound coin. This pastry is very 'short' so it will be a little crumbly, don't panic, it's fine to do a bit of patching once you have it in the tin. Roll the pastry around the rolling pin and carefully lay it over your tin. Gently press it into the corners, prick the base with a fork and trim away some of the excess. Don't trim away too much as the pastry will shrink back whilst baking, so leave it ugly. Cover with greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans (or rice) and blind bake for about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, take out the beans and the greaseproof paper and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes - you want the pastry to be cooked through, light golden in colour and dry to the touch. Leave this cool whilst you make the filling.

Start by creaming the butter and the sugar together, add in the eggs, one at a time, vigorously beating after each one. If the mix looks like it may curdle, add in a spoonful of flour. Once the eggs are nicely incorporated, add in the ground almonds and plain flour and thoroughly mix.

Now that the pastry has had a little time to cool, you can now neatly trim this back to the edge of the tin and start adding the filling. Spoon in the apricot jam and spread evenly over the base. Now cover with the frangipane filling, I find this easiest by placing little dollops all around, then smoothing it over with a fork. Finally, scatter over the ground almonds and place in the centre of your oven for 35-40 minutes. Keep checking the tart after about 30 minutes, you want a nice golden colour, evenly over the tart.

Once baked, leave the tart to cool on a wire rack, then serve with cream. It's totally delicious and completely irresistibly so I urge you to try this recipe at home.

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