Richard's Plum Tart

We were recently invited for wine followed by this magnificent dessert served with vanilla ice cream and  coffee at our friends, Richard and Marie. The deep red and yellow plums were dripping with the light sweet syrup as we savoured every bite. What a treat! Richard shares the recipe, handed down from his mother, Helga, below.

Here is a magic formula that is the answer to Life, the Universe & everything.

"TWO, FOUR, SIX".

...it's the family secret that my mother passed on to me and basically that's all you need to know to live an ecstatically happy (if rather short) and contented life, living only on earth-shattering good Viennese Apple or plum tart.

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Oh yes - you want to ask the same complicating but unnecessary questions that I did all those years ago.  "Yes, but of what.. for how long etc?....."

Here is the accompanying idiot's guide to achieving easy success and the admiration of friends and neighbours:

Ingredients,
2 Granulated sugar
4 Stork margarine
6 Flour (4 wholemeal: 2 Plain white)
3 or 4 Bramley Cooking apples

A spinkling of Sultanas

Mixture of granulated sugar and cinnamon (use plenty)

I think we are talking old money ounces, but it's the proportion that's important.

Mix it all together in a processor or my hand and form into a ball.  You can press it out into a slightly greased baking tin immediately (it makes one 12inch cake or two 9 and 7 inch ones - or you can keep the pastry in the fridge or freezer indefinitely.

Peel quarter and thinly slice three or four Bramley cooking apples, place in bowl and liberally sprinkle / coat with premixed (use a jam jar and shake it) granulated sugar and cinnamon.

Press out pastry in baking tin, add some sultanas and cover liberally with apple slices, shake over some more gran sugar/cinnamon mixture and place in preheated oven at 180C for about 45 minutes, until edges are slightly burnt.  Place on rack to cool. Separate from base and sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

There - now you know everything there is to know.  Or nearly, ‘cos the Apple cake recipe can and should be tried using plums.  Unfortunately Svitzen (don’t know how it should be spelt) plums have long been extinct in the UK, but this year I tried President plums, which make a brief appearance in late September.  I blind baked the pastry, (covering the base with baking roll) for 20 or so minutes before adding the halved (lengthwise) stoned plums, coated in the gran sugar/cinnamon mixture, and returning to the oven.  Be careful that the oven is not too hot or the plums will shrink. The result was blissful.

Bon appetite.

Richard