Plum Tart

It's probably last chance to take advantage of the seasonal fruit, so I used my midday break today to make a plum tart. One of the great things about it is that the plums are so fragrant that they fill the house with their wonderful scent while baking, it's better than aromatherapy!

For the pastry you need:

3 cups plain, all purpose flour
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp margarine
3 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 pack vanilla sugar
a handful of chopped almonds
icing sugar to dust

The filling:

1 kilo plums
1-2 handful chopped almonds (optional)
2-3 tbsp caster sugar

In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, and baking soda. Crack in the eggs, add butter and knead into smooth pastry. Cover the bowl with cling film and put into the fridge for about 30 minutes. Grease the baking tray and line it with breadcrumbs, so as the cake doesn't stick to the tray while baking. Place the pastry onto a slightly floured surface and with a slightly floured rolling pin flatten it to about 1-1.5 cm thick. Line the baking tray with pastry. The pastry is very brittle and it'll probably crack and break apart when rolled flat and moved into the baking tray - it simply needs to be smoothed later.
Wash and stone the plums, then you can cut them in smaller pieces, or leave them in halves and arrange them on the pastry, sprinkle caster sugar and almonds onto the plums.  Alternatively, you may stew the plums with sugar to get a jam filling.

Place the remaining part of the pastry on a floured surface, remove a piece and roll it into a long stripe. Then flatten it a bit with a rolling pin and place the stripe onto the cake. Make a few more stripes like that and arrange a grid on top of the cake.

Pre-heat the oven to 170C and bake the cake for about 45 minutes. If the cake turns golden brown slightly earlier, remove it from the oven then. Leave the cake to cook and dust icing sugar on top. Yummy!