Prune Tart
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the pitted prunes in a deep dish and sprinkle with brown sugar.
Steep the stones in a small amount of water to extract the flavor, then discard the stones.
Cover the dish with the light pastry dough.
Bake
Bake until the pastry is golden brown.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Prunes
- Provide the main filling, adding concentrated sweetness and a soft, jammy texture when baked.
- Brown sugar
- Sweetens the prunes and helps them caramelize slightly, deepening their flavor.
- Light pastry dough
- Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Bake until the pastry is golden brown. Baking long enough lets the crust set and brown through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavor. Pulling it too early leaves the pastry pale and doughy, while overbaking can make the sugars in the prunes darken and burn.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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