Pink of Perfection

By this point, dear readers, I hope you all know how much I love to have guests for dinner. (It is one of my dreams, by the by, to be referred to in print as a “celebrated hostess.”) For a week beforehand I will hunch over a menu, planning its every turn. One thing in particular will usually set the tone: I simply can’t resist the first brief rush of artichokes in fall or am inspired by a clever combination at a restaurant. That first dish will be my starting point as I coordinate the other courses to surround it in an evening.

And I believe in dessert, of course. Before I was a cook, I was a baker, the girl in high school bringing her friends plates of chocolate chip cookies and making zucchini bread on Saturday morning. In an average adult week, it can be difficult to carve out the time for a loaf or bread, and the excuses to bake, I find, are rarer than I would like. But there is nothing quite like the tactile experience of baking, using your fingers to cut butter into flour, rolling out pastry, or kneading dough. When friends are coming for dinner, it is my chance.

Necessity, that scrappy devil, truly is the mother of invention. This tart was originally imagined with apricots, peaches, and almonds. But when I couldn’t get my hands on the apricots, and was surrounded at every turn by plums, I changed my daydream and this tart was born. If you feel like getting creative — and I hope you do, more often than not — use this as a template to try different fruits and nuts.

The crust is a little persnickety, so make sure to refrigerate until it is sufficiently cold. This is a really nice tart to make when you’re not in a hurry and you can just enjoy the process, rather than fret about having enough time to set the table and put on your eyeliner. Make this ahead of time and it will be a pleasure. At the end of the meal, after steaming packets of scallops and copious bottles of wine, proudly place it on one of your cake stands, put on the coffee, and you’ll have a hit on your hands.

Hazelnut Plum Tart
Serves 6-8

for the crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk
2 1/2-3 tablespoons ice water

for the filling:
8 plums
2/3 cup hazelnuts
2 tablespoons flour
7 tablespoons butter at room temperature
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk

First make the crust: stir flour and salt together in a bowl. Add the butter and use your fingers (or pulse in a food processor) until the mixture looks like coarse meal. It will not be fully incorporated. Stir in egg yolk and just enough water for the pastry to come together. Gather into a ball, wrap in plastic, and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and put a large pot of water onto boil. Make an X on the bottom of each plum and drop into the boiling water for a minute. Fish out and drop into a bowl of ice water (or just let cool — that’s fine). Peel (the skins will slip right off).

Fetch your chilled dough and lightly flour your counter. Roll out the pastry to fit into a 9-inch tart pan and transfer into your pan. An easy way to do this, if you’ve never tried, is to drape the pastry dough over your rolling pin and then flip into your pan. Trim the edges, prick the bottom with a fork, and place back in the refrigerator.

In your food processor, finely grind the hazelnuts and flour. In medium-sized bowl, cream butter and 1/2 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and yolk. Stir in hazlenuts. Turn your attention to those plums: you can cut them nicely or just chop them any which way you can.

Get your tart out of the fridge, and spread hazelnut cream mixture in the bottom. Arrange plums on top, and slide into oven to bake for 10-15 minutes until crust is beginning to brown. Lower heat to 350 degrees and bake until cream sets, about another 15-20 minutes. About 10 minutes before the tart is done, sprinkle on those last two tablespoons of sugar.