Quince Frangipane Tartlets

Recently I found I'm extremely picky when it's about fruits mixed in desserts. There are certain fruits which I enjoy eating when raw but never or at least rarely when cooked. Like lemons, oranges, whatever citruses you name, if turned into curd – this is something I am definitely not fond of, but I do love them when candied and use lemon zest even more often than vanilla.

Normally I do like pears but the other day I made a pear-coconut tart that was so overpowered by the pears that for me it was a torture to eat it.

And bananas – they are not amongst my favourite fruits for baking but I found I adore them if mixed with jaggary, and there must always be rum (in bulk) – just because everything is better when boozy ;)

On the other hand apricots are my all times favourite fruit. And I think I just found another fruit love of mine – the quince – such a flavourful buttery deliciousness. Till past week my quince experience boiled down to quince jam (not made by me, I was only the eater). But then I saw quinces at the fruit and vegetable store below our apartment. And since it's rare to find them, I bought 3 kilos of them – I poached them, baked with them, made some quince paste (expect recipe soon)... And today I went for more. Unfortunately there were only 4 quinces left – now I'm looking at them as if they were “my precious”.

Quince Frangipane Tartlets Recipe:
Makes: 10 tartlets 8,5cm in diameter

For the Crust:

• 190 gr cake flour;
• 70 gr confectionner's sugar;
• 25 gr almond meal;
• 2 gr salt;
• 20 gr cocoa powder ( I used dutch-processed);
• 110 gr cold butter;
• 1 egg;
• ½ tsp vanilla extract;
• 10 gr rum.

In the bowl of your food processor equipped with the blade, place flour, sugar, salt, almond meal, cocoa powder and pulse a couple of time to combine all. Add in cold butter, cut into pieces and pulse several times to make it into small chunks. Add in egg, vanilla extract and rum and pulse several more times to combine. Actually I added rum because my egg wasn't very big.

Gather the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for at least 4 hours, or even overnight.

Take the dough out of the fridge. On a lightly floured counter top, roll the dough out to 3mm and line 10 tartlet rings with it. Place the rings on a lined with silpat (or paper) baking sheet.

For the Frangipane:
Recipe, taken from Tartelette

• 115 gr softened butter;
• 115 gr honey;
• 100 gr ground almonds;
• 2 eggs;
• 60 gr heavy cream;
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom.

Place the butter, honey, ground almonds, and the eggs in a large bowl and whisk until smooth (can also be done in a food processor). Add the cream and cardamom but stir in it instead of whisking not to emulsify it or it will rise while baking.

For the Quinces:

• 2 quinces;
• water.

Under running water, rub the quinces with your fingers or using a brush to remove the fuzz. Peel them, cut in 4 and remove the core. Cut each quarter crosswise into slices. Place slices in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a simmer. Cook till fork tender – about 15 minutes. Drain quinces from water and let them cool.

Assemble and bake:

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Divide the frangipane among the tartlet rings, add a few quince slices on top and bake for around 25 minutes until the top is golden brown.

Note: I've put some home made apricot jam on top of half of the tartlets, just because I wanted to see if my two favourite fruits go on together. I think that the apricot flavour (maybe because it was more concentrated since it was from a jam) got over the quince, so I suggest you better leave it out.