Mango banana frangipane tart


I often go over to Helen of Tartlette and ogle at her lovely tarts - they look so beautiful and make me drool so badly....I bet you cannot come back without resolving to make one yourself. So began the search for the perfect vegetarian tart. I used to make these with eggs long long ago, and made them well too, but many things changed when three years back I became strictly vegetarian! Suddenly I found myself baking less as I was not completely satisfied with the substitutes...and then I began blogging in Jan '08, a lot of things became clearer! I have slowly started looking beyond cakes - breads and tarts too:) I credit most of my good endeavors to Susan V of Fat free vegan and Vaishali's Holy Cow!, the ones that might not turn out satisfactory or less than perfect are all due to my faults!!

I love anything with almonds - badam barfi, almond cakes and tarts. I love anything with mangoes - pavlova, lassi, shake, cake whatever! And, I am crazy about tarts esp. the ones I have eaten at the pâtisserie at Hotel Gaylord at Churchgate. I must mention that I was quite happy to try and put the three loves together to create something nice!

I have this book called Essential Cakes by Parragon Publishers (Could not find the link anywhere) which has a lovely assortment of cookies, cakes and tarts. In the first week of this month when the net was disrupted and I had a lot of spare time, I attempted quite a few of them converting them into eggless recipes (I was still vegetarian and not vegan!). This frangipane tart is one such attempt which was well received. Next time I make this I will try with plums or apples instead of bananas as they turned pinkish and did not look good with the mangoes - They tasted nice but looks do matter in food especially when you have one fussy kid in the house!

Frangipane tarts refer to tarts which use almonds in the covering and almost anything can be used to fill the tarts. Just before starting this post I found one yummy pear and almond frangipane tart at Dessert first by Anita! I like her arrangement of fruits better then the filling I have done. Do have a look at it - it will keep you glued! My own may not look as nice (my snaps are not as good as those in the link!) but the taste was great - the fast disappearing act said it all!

Mango & banana frangipane tart
(Source: Adapted from Essential Cakes)

Ingredients for the pastry pie dough:
APF - 1 and 1/4 cups
Superfine caster sugar - About 5 tbsp.
I used 2 to 3 tbsp. sunflower oil
(You may use 1/2 cup butter cut into pieces instead)
Water - 1 tbsp.

Ingredients for the fruit filling:
Elaichi kela/Small thin yellow plantains native to India - 1
Diced mangoes - 1 hapoos/alphonso

Ingredients for the frangipane covering:
Butter - 1/2 cup approx.
Superfine caster sugar - 3/4 cup
Mango puree - 1 to 2 tbsp.
Cornflour - 2 tsp.
Sieved APF - 5 tbsp. (Book recommends 6tbsp.)
Blanched ground almonds - 1/4 cup (The books says 2/3cup)
Cream - 4tbsp.

Method:
Pie:
Place the flour and sugar in a bowl and rub in the butter. Add water and form a soft pastry dough (like that of shankpali/shakkar pare or samosa covering). Wrap in cling film and chill for 30mins.

Roll out the dough (I rolled it between two plastic sheets, as it does not break this way even if the fat is less) and line a 9 inch loose bottomed tart dish. Prick the pastry with a fork and chill the tart for 30 mins.

Line it with foil and baking beans - just to add weight - and bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 deg. Cel. for 15mins. Remove beans and cook 10 mins more.

Filling:
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Beat in the mango puree, 2 tsp. cornflour and stir in the flour, almonds and cream.

Line the pastry pie with diced mangoes and sliced bananas and spoon the filling on the top.

Bake for about an hour (mine took a good 15mins extra) till the topping is just set. Cool slightly and turn out. Serve warm or cold. Either way it tastes nice.



Note:
My sweet tooth is not very sweet so I lessened the sugar and still felt the covering sweet. Next time I don't think I will use more than 1/2 cup of sugar. Otherwise it was perfect. I generally go by the feel and not by measurements to a large extent. The covering should be a little thick and creamy.

If you don't mind eggs proceed for the filling like this:
1 egg and 2 egg yolks instead of the mango puree and 2 tsp. cornflour.

Meeta K of 'What's for lunch, Honey?' is celebrating mango mania in her monthly mingle this June, and this seems a nice entry from a mango maniac:) In case you would like to participate, the deadline is 14th July, so get going!

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