Apricot Tartlets with Pine Nuts

Apricots probably are my favorite summer fruit. Sadly, I have never been able to eat raw stone fruit without getting a stomach ache. I can only eat them if they're cooked. That means, once they're transformed into a cake, it's no problem anymore. That's why, in summer, apricot cakes usually make an appearance on my dessert plate more than only once. Here comes a wonderful tart recipe with a vanilla-flavored filling. The pine nuts could also be substituted by almonds, but I suggest you go with the pine nuts! I love their flavor and it's a really nice variation of the usual apricot-almond combo.

Recipe

(from the lovely Fräulein Klein's "Die wunderbare Welt von Fräulein Klein")

30g pine nuts (you can also use ground almonds)

100g cold butter

70g icing sugar

1 egg

200g flour

1/2 vanilla pod

100g white chocolate

250g crème fraiche

100g cream

1/2 vanilla pod

2 tablespoons sugar

400g apricots, washed, cut into slices

1 Tablespoon sugar

20g pine nuts

1 egg yolk

For the tart dough (if you're to lazy to do that, you can use store-bought): Roast the pine nuts (30g) and grind. Alternatively, you can use ground almonds. Put ground pine nuts, flour and seeds of the vanilla pod in a bowl and mix. Add egg, cold butter and icing sugar. You can either form a dough using your hands or - as I usually do - using a food processor. Form the dough into a ball, cover in cling film and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare either a 24cm diameter tart tin or about 8 little tart tin. I used aluminium tins which you don't have to line with parchment paper or grease with butter or anything. Roll out your dough until about 3mm thick. Line your tins with the dough. Put the tins back in the refrigerator until you have the filling ready.

Melt the white chocolate over a hot water bath. Beat cream together with the seeds of the other half of the vanilla pod. Put crème fraiche into a bowl together with the sugar and mix until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and mix. Then, fold in the cream. Fill your tart shells.

Spread your apricot slices on the tartlets and brush with egg yolk around the edge. Scatter some sugar over the tartlets. Bake for 20 minutes. After ten minutes, scatter the pine nuts over the tartlets and bake for another 10 minutes.