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!