Nectarine and Walnut Crostata
A crostata (Italian) or galette (French) is a free form tart - the easiest one to make!
I combined two of my favorite things, nectarines and walnuts, to make a fabulous end of summer fruity and nutty galette/crostata (the French and Italian words for a rustic, free form tart.) Usually I make frangipane, an almond flavored cream made from ground almonds, butter and sugar to use as a base to lay the fruit on. It's also just fun to say: Fran-juh-pan. Lacking almond flour, I decided to use toasted walnuts instead and loved the deep nutty walnut flavor it developed. Let’s call it “walngipane.” The crust is a simple pate brisee that can be thrown together in a food processor. One last note, you can use any fruit here! Not just any stone fruit, like peaches, plums, cherries…but also berries, apples, pears, etc would all be great here.
Nectarine and Walnut Tart (serves about 8)
One tart shell (recipe below)
Walngipane/walnut cream (recipe below)
4 big or 6 small ripe nectarines, sliced thinly
1 Tablespoon turbinado or granulated sugar
1 beaten egg or 2 Tbs cream to use as a pastry wash
Optional: apricot jam to glaze fruit or use as sauce//vanilla ice cream or whipped cream to accompany
Tart Crust (Pate Brisee)
1 1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs sugar
1/2 c cold, unsalted butter, cut in to 1" chunks
2-3 tbs ice water
Put the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor and pulse a few times to mix. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand (about 15 seconds.) Pour two tbs of water through the opening and mix until the mixture comes together into a ball.
(If you don’t have a food processor you can cut the butter into the flour mixture manually with a pastry fork or two forks (or your fingers) and then add the water when you’re at the coarse sand stage. You may need one more tablespoons of water. Then use your hands to gather dough into a ball.)
Pat dough
into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate one hour. After an hour, unwrap the dough, let it soften a few minutes, and roll it out on a floured surface until it's 1/8" thick. The best way to transfer it to your sheet pan is to roll the dough on floured parchment and then transfer dough and parchment together to the sheet pan. You really do want to use parchment here because sometimes while baking, the fruit juice can leak through a crack in the crust and really caramelize (aka cement) the tart to the pan if you don’t have a buffer layer of parchment.
Spread the walnut cream (recipe below) over the dough leaving a 1-2” border.
Fan out the nectarines on the walnut cream. You can also just dump your fruit on (especial cherries and berries) - doesn’t need to be meticulously arranged!
Now fold edges inward and brush the crust with a beaten egg or cream. Sprinkle tart crust and filling with a tablespoon of so of coarse turbinado (or granulated) sugar.
Bake Crostata at 400 F for 45-60 minutes - you want the crust to be a deep golden brown.
If you want to add one more layer of flavor and get the fruit shiny, you can warm up apricot jam or jelly in the microwave and brush it over the fruit. This will give it a shiny glaze like the fruit in a French tart. You can also simply warm up the apricot jam or jelly and spoon it on the plate like a sauce (see pic below.)
Let crostata cool before cutting and serving, ideally with ice cream or whipped cream.
Walnut Cream (Walngipane??)
If you prefer to make traditional almond frangipane, use 1/2 cup almond flour in place of the walnuts
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1/4 c sugar
1 Tbs flour
3 Tbs room temperature unsalted butter
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Tip: If walnuts have a lot of skin on them (the skin can be very bitter), put the toasted nuts in a colander or the basket of a salad spinner (anything with holes small enough that the walnuts wont fall out) and break them up a bit with your hands to crack the skin. Then shake the basket or colander a bit to separate the skin from the nut. Discard any skins that fall away.
Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth.
