Stone Fruit and Almond Tart

In the June issue of Bon Appétit, this was called an apricot and almond galette (with the qualifier “one-hour” added on the online version). That being said, it’s not a galette, it’s really more of a rustic tart; and I made it with plumcots, since I couldn’t find apricots, and I think you could substitute any stone fruit as long as you cut them to the right size. Since my plumcots were bigger than apricots, I quartered them instead of halving them, and I’d do the same to plums; peaches should be cut into 6 or 8 pieces, I’m guessing. This was a great summer dessert! (In unrelated news, I’ve yet to find a good formula recipe for stone fruit crumbles, another good summer dessert; I tried a crumble with dates and sunflower seeds in the topping – hated it – and used this formula for the filling – fail. I’ll try again next summer and stick to tarts for now.)

½ cup almonds, preferably blanched
⅓ cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 large egg
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter or margarine, room temperature
½ tsp. almond extract (optional)
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 pinch of kosher salt
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
1 package frozen puff pastry, thawed
12 apricots (about 1¼ lbs.), halved, pitted; or other stone fruit, quartered if large

Place a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 425 °F.

Pulse almonds and sugar in a food processor until very finely ground. Add egg and pulse to combine. Add butter, almond extract (if using), vanilla extract, salt, and 1 Tbsp. flour; pulse until almond cream is smooth.

Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface just to smooth out any creases. If you’re using a package of pastry that has 2 sheets (as was the case for me), stack and roll out to a ¼"–⅛"-thick rectangle. If your package contains a single 16x10" sheet of puff pastry, halve it crosswise and roll out one half on a lightly floured surface until rectangle is ¼"–⅛" thick; save remaining half for another use. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Fold over edges of pastry to make a ½" border around all sides. Prick surface all over with a fork (this keeps the pastry from rising too much when baked and helps it cook through). Spread almond cream over pastry, staying inside borders. (Chill dough in the freezer for a few minutes if it becomes too soft to work with.) Set apricots, cut sides up, on top of almond cream. Sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Bake tart until pastry is golden brown and puffed, 15–20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 °F and continue to bake until pastry is deep golden brown and cooked through and apricots are softened and browned in spots, 15–20 minutes longer.