Summer kicks into gear with stone fruit

Summer gets an early start with strawberries and raspberries, but I don't feel like the season truly hits its stride until the stone fruit start coming in. We had wild plum trees in our backyard when I was growing up, which made it easy to chart summer's progress, and also meant that come the end of June several of the trees in the yard were drooping with the weight of golf ball-sized plums. It didn't help that my parents planted additional varieties of plums, so that at the height of the season we had a veritable glut of fruit on our hands.

Would that we had had this recipe back in those days! (For the most part, we made a lot of jam.) It is a simple and (relatively) easy way to go through some plums. I say "relatively" easy because the plums we got then, and the plums I get now in my CSA share, are of the cling variety--they don't give up their pits easily. In fact it can be a slippery mess trying to get the plums cut neatly into slices, especially if the plums are very ripe. The rest of the preparation, though, is straightforward and takes no longer than the oven takes to come up to temperature. You don't even have to toast the almond slices if you're short on time, though I recommend that you do.

I think that this tart looks prettiest when you use a variety of plum that's dark on the outside and paler close to the pit, but you could use any kind of plum that you have on hand. Any kind of stone fruit, really, as I'm sure it would work with apricots, nectarines, or peaches--even cherries, if you're willing to pit and slice that much fruit for one tart. Recipe below!

Plum and Almond Tart

Adapted from Bon Appetit, July 1996

Makes one 14x14" tart

Ingredients

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 6 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 2 tablespoons all-purpos flour
• 1 3/4 pounds red plums, pitted and cut into wedges 1/3-inch thick

Directions

1. Place oven rack in lower third of the oven, and preheat the oven to 400F/205C.
2. Line a large baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
3. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the puff pastry to a square 14 inches on a side, trimming the edges if necessary to make a neater square.
4. Transfer the pastry to the prepared baking sheet. Leaving a 1-inch border on all sides, prick the pastry all over with a fork.
5. In a small bowl, combine the almonds, the flour, and 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Sprinkle the mixture over the pastry, again leaving a 1-inch border on all sides.
6. Place the plum slices in a medium bowl. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons sugar and toss to coat the plums evenly. Arrange the plums over the almond mixture.
7. Bake the tart until the pastry is puffed and golden brown, and the plums are tender and juicy, 25-30 minutes. Cool the tart on its baking sheet on a rack, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Notes

• The pastry can be prepared, sprinkled with the almond mixture, 3 hours ahead of time. Keep chilled.
• This tart is best the day it's made (within a few hours of baking, to be honest), but it keeps reasonably well for something involving puff pastry.
• If you happen to have some pie pastry lying around, or if you don't have puff pastry but can make some pie pastry, you could substitute it for the puff pastry. Leave an extra couple of inches' border around the fruit, and fold the pastry over the fruit to form a galette.
• For a shinier finished product, boil together some plum (or apricot) preserves with a bit of water, and brush the mixture on the fruit when the tart comes out of the oven.