To celebrate the last day in July, I’ve been sick in bed all day. However, I still have to feed myself and there’s these super simple little tart treats from Sweden called Almond Mazarines which I just needed to comfort myself.
They’re really easy. The pastry happens in a food processor, and the almond frangipani filling is an all-in, one bowl, one minute dream.
I first had a Mazarine at the aptly named Swedish Tarts cafe in Semaphore, South Australia, near my sister’s seaside house. They have lots of Swedish treats including amazing pancakes with Nordic savoury fillings and a whole lot of tarts. And although I only had time for one kind of cake when I kind of accidentally took the ferry from Helsingør, Denmark to Helsingborg, Sweden for coffee and cake a couple of weeks ago, I was heartened to see them in the glass cabinet of the kondtori I visited there (I had Princess Cake – I’ll blog about that one soon!!!).
I adapted this recipe from an IKEA cookbook. I figure they should know how to make Swedish things – but don’t worry! No Allen keys required.
Almond Mazarines
Pastry
ingredients
200g flour
100g butter
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp ice water
mixing
Process the flour, sugar, butter and egg yolk until fine crumbs form. Add the water, process until the pastry just starts to clump. Gather the pastry together into a ball, flatten slightly, wrap in cling film and refrigerate an hour.
Roll out the pastry on a well floured surface to about 3mm thick. Cut 10 cm rounds of pastry. The first roll out will probably yield 9 rounds. Gather the off cuts back into a ball and roll out again to cut the remaining three rounds. Press the rounds into the holes of a standard 12 hole muffin pan. Don’t worry if the rounds crack, just mould the pastry back together with your fingertips. Set aside.
Almond filling
ingredients
75g butter, soft
100g caster sugar
150g ground almonds
3 eggs
1 tsp good quality almond essence
1/8 tsp salt
50g flaked almonds, to decorate
100g pouring fondant icing (this can be purchased from cake decorating shops), to decorate
mixing
Combine all ingredients except for the flaked almonds in a bowl and mix until smooth. Spoon evenly into the uncooked pastry cases – the mixture will come nearly to the tops of the pastry cases. Sprinkle the surface of each Mazarine with flaked almonds.
Bake the Mazarines at 175 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. The tarts might peak up as the cook, if so, gently press them to a rounded surface while they are cooling. Remove the Mazarines from the muffin pan and cool on a wire rack.
When the Mazarines are cold, place the fondant in a small bowl and heat very carefully over a bowl of hot water, until the fondant is just runny enough to spoon or drizzle over the Mazarines.
Enjoy!xxx
