For this tart we have combined two recipes: the nut filling comes from Laurent Mariotte, a French food journalist and radio and television presenter, while the shortcrust pastry is by Jamie Oliver. It is indulgent, there’s no point in sugarcoating it: butter, sugar, cream, caramel and 200 g of walnuts in a 30 cm tart tin. We bake it in autumn when the new nuts arrive from the Isère Valley and cut it into small pieces. The pastry is the part that can go wrong, so below we explain why you shouldn’t knead it for too long.
Isère · Dessert
Tarte aux noix
Two hours with resting time, one of which is for the pastry in the refrigerator. The caramel needs attention, the rest is easy. It pairs perfectly with a glass of chilled Tawny Port.
Ingredients
For the shortcrust pastry · 30 cm tart tin
125 g butter
100 g icing sugar
1 pinch salt
250 g flour
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp cold milk or water
For the nut filling · serves 6
Preparation
The pastry
1
Cream together the butter, icing sugar and salt.
2
Mix in the flour and egg yolks until a crumbly mixture forms. This can be done in a food processor or by hand.
3
Add the cold milk or water and quickly knead into a smooth pastry. The longer you knead it, the more elastic it becomes, and the more it will shrink in the oven.
4
Form the pastry into a ball, wrap it in cling film and leave to rest in the refrigerator for one hour.
5
Preheat the oven to 170 °C. Grease the tart tin and dust with flour.
6
Press the pastry into the tin, cover with baking paper, sprinkle with rice or dried beans and blind-bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
The nut caramel
7
Carefully heat the water and brown sugar in a saucepan until the mixture turns a beautiful golden brown.
8
Add the cream and continue to simmer over low heat.
9
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the honey and salted butter.
10
Roughly chop the walnuts and stir them in.
11
Once the mixture has cooled slightly, add the eggs and stir.
Baking
12
Pour the nut caramel onto the pre-baked base and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes.
13
Leave to cool, decorate with walnut halves or chocolate sauce and serve cold.
Tip
Let the caramel cool completely before adding the eggs. Otherwise they will scramble immediately and the filling will be grainy instead of creamy.
