Mincemeat Tart with Hazelnut Frangipan

My challenge was to create a New Year's Eve dessert or two using storecupboard ingredients and Christmas leftovers. I made a really tasty chocolate and chestnut mousse from leftover chocolate sauce (which was quite solid when cold), unsweetened chestnut purée, ricotta cheese, a little sugar and some double cream, but let CT take the leftovers home before I had a chance to photograph them.

My other dessert was this mincemeat tart - a base of shortcrust pastry spread with a layer of mincemeat (about half a jar) and topped with a frangipan mixture made from 50g ground hazelnuts, 50g SR flour, 100g softened butter, 100g caster sugar and 2 eggs, beaten together. I also added a tablespoon of milk to make the mixture easier to spread over the mincemeat, and decorated the top with pastry shapes made from the pastry off-cuts. The shapes were supposed to be snowflakes, but looked more like stars after baking, especially the way I had them arranged!

 

This needed to bake at a high temperature (200C), initially, to make sure the pastry base cooked through, but after 20 minutes, I lowered the temperature to 170C and carried on cooking until the topping was golden and firm to the touch.

This was an excellent variation on the traditional mince pie. Using only a pastry base made a slice lighter than a pastry capped pie, and the hazelnut frangipan (for want of a better word - I would usually use only ground nuts and no flour, in a frangipan, but my ground hazelnuts are a precious dwindling commodity at the moment) was light and full of nutty flavour, adding an extra dimension to the overall taste experience.