This is another very Frenchy tart. Prunes here have to be those soft semi-dried ones from France. You can get them in large supermarkets in the UK. You see, supermarkets sometimes shelve things according to their weird logic, particularly dried fruits and nuts. I find these French ones together with other chewy dried fruits like pineapples and mangos, not with raisins and nuts in the baking section.
My little secret for buying almonds is to go to Indian ingredients shelf in the ethnic food section. The bags for almonds here are twice or three times as large as the ones in the baking section for the same price :)
Back to the prunes. Normal dried prunes would be too hard for this, I think. Having said that, I have never tried to use hard ones. It might work if you soak them in brandy long enough and cook for a bit.
The title says Armagnac, but I wrote it in there because it sounds fancy. I use ordinary brandy.
Ingredients (for 24cm tart tin):
(pastry)
160g flour
80g cold and hard butter
(filling)
300g semi-dried Agen prunes
4 tablespoon of Armagnac or good brandy
2 medium eggs, beaten
40g ground almonds
60g caster sugar
200ml crème fraîche
Soak the prunes in the booze for at least an hour. I leave them overnight when I know I would make this tart the next day.
Preheat oven to 200C.
We'll make the pastry first. Put the butter and flour in a large bowl. Pinch the butter, rub it into the flour, and gradually work together to make breadcrumb texture or wet sand. Add cold water from the tap by a teaspoon and work it into the pastry. Repeat the process (probably just once or twice) until everything is sticking together into a dough.
Sandwich the dough between two large sheets of cling film, and roll it out into a size large enough to cover the bottom and the side of the tin. Take the top cling film and put this side down to line the tin. Gently push all around the side, and leave this in the fridge while you get on with the filling.
Mix the eggs, crème fraîche, ground almonds, and sugar. Drain the prunes and add the brandy into the cream mixture. That's it, really, for the filling.
Take the pastry out of the fridge, take the cling film off, and trim the edge of the pastry. Arrange the prunes over the pastry and pour over the cream mixture. Bake it in the oven for about 35 minutes. Eat at room temperature with more crème fraîche.