Slightly flaky, buttery sweet pastry is filled with soft almond frangipane, rhubarb infused with orange and vanilla, raspberries and nutty almond praline.  Jump to Recipe 

This is your next dinner party dessert. Or your next celebratory ‘I made it through the day’ dessert. Or simply just an ‘I feel like dessert’ dessert. Actually, this tart shouldn’t just be limited to dessert – make it for morning tea, afternoon tea, breakfast…in my opinion, it is appropriate anytime, any day (and that’s all that matters, right?!).

Rhubarb is one of my favourite vegetables: almost inedible raw, a short time in the oven transforms the stringy stalks into tangy, tart yet sweet bites that go perfectly with just about anything – use it with your regular muesli or porridge, your indulgent weekend pancakes or french toast, have it on crumpets, make it into a jam, fold through a cake or muffins, make it into a fruity crumble topped with melting vanilla ice cream, have it plain with ice cream, heck, make rhubarb ice cream (or rhubarb and roasted pear ice cream à la Gelato Messina – I can vouch for it!)… the list goes on. As you can probably tell, I have been on a bit of a rhubarb kick lately and have used it in a myriad of ways, but this rhubarb and raspberry frangipane tart remains one of the best (there is also a recipe for Rhubarb Brioche French Toast with Cream Patisserie coming…but more about that in the next few weeks!).

Here, the rhubarb is baked briefly in the oven, gently infusing it with orange zest and vanilla bean for layers of flavour that shine through in the end product. The ultra-short and buttery sweet pastry is filled with soft almond frangipane, the aforementioned rhubarb and a couple of handfuls of raspberries for extra sharpness (and they just go so perfectly with rhubarb, don’t you think?). The frangipane is sturdy enough to hold up the juiciness of the rhubarb and raspberries, while the almond praline topping adds extra nutty crunchiness. It is works perfectly for dessert topped with a scoop of ice cream and extra cooking syrup from the rhubarb (don’t throw it out!), and left-overs are devoured any old time of day – it doesn’t normally last very long in our house.

The tart has been a work in progress: I have battled with the cooking time, frangipane, the pastry and the best way of filling it on and off for the past couple of years, but over the holidays decided that I was going to get it right (more on that afternoon here). It finally worked just as I wanted – and the inspiration and recipe development has come from many sources, including an adapted pastry from Little & Friday, the almond praline topping from From the Kitchen, and the rhubarb and frangipane recipe adapted from The Engine Room.

Best of all, it doesn’t require blind-baking, so you just line the tart tin with the pastry, refrigerate it for half-an-hour while you make the frangipane paste, fill the tin, top with the berries and rhubarb and pop straight in the oven. The almond praline is sprinkled over the top roughly half way through the baking time as it cooks much more quickly than the tart itself. It does make extra rhubarb, which you can serve alongside the tart with extra cooking syrup, and you are likely to end up with a bit of spare pastry – I made another mini-tart but you can do whatever you like with it!

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