How I love this tart! It has a story, you know… I made this dessert during my holidays in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques at a friend’s house, Fanny. Yes, I named it after her! I had absolutely no plans to do any baking, but Fanny had decided otherwise, to my great delight of course.
Knowing that my friend’s uncle grows yellow peaches, the dessert was a no-brainer. And I also knew I was going to pair the peach with lemon verbena (picked straight from Fanny’s garden, handy!).
I had already tried Jeffrey Cagnes’ peach and verbena tart but for this dessert, I didn’t want to “transform” the delicious peaches I had, I simply wanted to use them fresh to get something ultra fresh.
For the construction of this peach and lemon verbena tart, I went with a pâte sucrée, an almond cream flavoured with lemon verbena (and soaked with a little olive oil, also flavoured with verbena), a lemon verbena whipped ganache and fresh peaches, of course. A fairly easy recipe in itself.
Except that nothing went as planned!! At first, we were going for the tartlet format. Halfway through baking, we noticed that our tart shells looked more like discs, the edges had collapsed. Disaster! It’s true that we hadn’t been able to chill the raw dough for very long.
Never mind, we then went for the large format and I left the dough to chill thoroughly. Same again, the edges collapsed! And the almond cream looked odd on top of that. As for the taste, it wasn’t right, the pastry wasn’t good, the almond cream really wasn’t great. I know I’m not in my own kitchen, but still! In short, we had nothing left…
Far be it from me to give up, I took back the reins and decided to quickly start the pâte sucrée over again (well, I’ll spare you the details of the compulsory shopping trip because we really had nothing left).
In the end, even if visually the assembly isn’t perfect, we did at least have a decent tart shell! Phew! The almond cream also looked quite different. That left the whipped ganache patiently waiting in the fridge… luckily no problem there. All that remained was the assembly. I decided to make a kind of big rosette, which is what I usually like to do when I make an apple tart.
So as you’ll have gathered, this dessert has come a long way! And we really enjoyed it too. Admittedly, we were a bit impatient to taste it and we didn’t let the ganache set long enough (it was very hot that day too), so the cream had softened a little by the time we ate it. A few hours later, it was perfect! Despite all these adventures, this dessert really deserved its place on my blog. A recipe, a memory of such a lovely week in the south with you, my dear little Fanny!
Ingredients & Method
4 components · Full recipe
Lemon verbena whipped ganache (to start the day before)
Ingredients
- 73 g (2.6 oz) white chocolate
- 50 g (1.8 oz) full-fat whipping cream
- 25 lemon verbena leaves
- 123 g (4.3 oz) full-fat whipping cream, very cold
Method
1
Heat the 50 g (1.8 oz) of cream with the lemon verbena leaves in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Cover and leave to infuse for 15 minutes.
2
Break the white chocolate into pieces in a bowl (you can melt it slightly in a bain-marie or in the microwave).
3
Strain the cream to remove the verbena leaves, pressing down on them with a spatula. Check there is still 50 g (1.8 oz) of cream (top up if needed). Reheat the cream.
4
Pour one third of the hot cream over the white chocolate and mix with a spatula to create an emulsion. Add the second third, then the third, until you have a smooth, homogeneous mixture.
5
Add the 123 g (4.3 oz) of cold cream and mix again. Blend for a few seconds with a hand blender to thoroughly combine everything.
Sweet pastry (makes 2 tart shells — to start 2 days ahead or the day before)
Ingredients
- 150 g (5.3 oz) butter
- 95 g (3.4 oz) icing sugar
- 30 g (1.1 oz) ground almonds
- 60 g (2.1 oz) egg (one large egg)
- 250 g (8.8 oz) flour
- a pinch of fleur de sel
- a knife-tip of vanilla powder
Method
1
Place the softened butter and icing sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed. Add the ground almonds, vanilla powder and fleur de sel and mix again.
2
Add the beaten egg and mix with a spatula this time (easier than with the mixer).
3
Finish with the flour and mix in the stand mixer until you get a smooth ball of dough. Do not overwork the pastry. Bring the dough together without insisting. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions.
4
Wrap both portions in cling film, shaping each into a flattened rectangle. Place one in the fridge overnight and the other in the freezer (for another tart). The next day, roll the pastry out to 2–3 mm thickness. Cut out a 26 cm (10.2 in) diameter circle and a strip for the inner ring border (approximately 2.5 cm (1 in) high and 35 cm (13.8 in) long).
5
Grease a 22 cm (8.7 in) diameter tart ring, then lay the pastry in it, making sure to create a right angle, and press a 9 cm (3.5 in) ring in the centre to cut through the pastry.
6
Remove the circle of pastry from the centre, replace the cutter, then place the pastry strip around it.
7
Refrigerate for at least 6 hours (ideally).
8
Preheat the oven to 160°C / 325°F.
9
Once the pastry is thoroughly chilled, trim the excess pastry with a small knife.
10
Place a sheet of parchment paper on top and add baking beans or dried pulses for blind baking (normally, if the tart shell has been in the fridge overnight, baking beans are not needed — the pastry won’t move).
Almond cream
Ingredients
- 50 g (1.8 oz) ground almonds
- 50 g (1.8 oz) icing sugar
- 50 g (1.8 oz) whole eggs
- 50 g (1.8 oz) butter
- 5 g (0.2 oz) cornstarch
- 5 lemon verbena leaves
- 2 peaches
Method
1
Meanwhile, beat the butter in the stand mixer (with the paddle attachment) until creamy.
2
Add the sifted icing sugar and mix.
3
Incorporate half the eggs. Mix, then add half the ground almonds. Mix again.
4
Add the remaining eggs and mix, then add the remaining ground almonds, the cornstarch and the chopped lemon verbena leaves. Mix until you have a smooth cream.
Assembly of the peach and lemon verbena tart
Ingredients
- None
Method
1
Wash the peaches and slice them into not-too-thin slices.
2
Whip the verbena ganache in the stand mixer — do not over-whip it. Spread the ganache evenly over the entire surface of the tart and smooth with a large palette knife.
3
Arrange the peach slices evenly over the top.
Gallery
