Brown Butter Peach Tourte

This brown butter peach tourte, or tart, from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi perfectly captures the essence of summer. It’s hard to top biting directly into a velvety ripe peach on a sunny afternoon, but if you can hoard a few away for later, this tart is absolutely worth the effort, I promise.   

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If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you’ll know I’m better at making tarts than pies (hence the preponderance of tart recipes here), so I often feel a bit left out when pie-making season comes around. That’s why I was excited to discover and make this peach tourte, a very French version of peach pie. Although most traditional French tarts are open-faced, i.e. with a single bottom crust holding a filling, this tart has a top layer like a double crust pie. The filling is made of peaches mixed with browned butter, sugar, and a dash of almond extract – all just enough to enhance the flavor of the peaches without overpowering them. The fragrance that fills your kitchen when it’s baking is incredibly heady – I want to make it again just to breathe in the scent.

The tart crust is made of two layers of pâte sablée, my favorite tart dough. It’s sweet, buttery, and crisp-tender like shortbread, and a perfect base for pastry cream, or in this case a filling of ripe peaches.

Find the ripest, sweetest peaches you can for the filling – they are tossed with some deliciously fragrant browned butter and just a bit of sugar, almond extract, and lemon juice, but otherwise it’s a showcase for the peaches, as it should be. If you do want to mix it up, you can add a bit of cinnamon or nutmeg for a more autumnal feel, but I really liked just the slightest hint of almond.

The top layer is another batch of pâte sablée, this one rolled thin, carefully draped across the top, and liberally sprinkled with sugar. Again, I personally find tart dough easier to work with than pie dough (your mileage may vary!) It’s supple and forgiving, and rolls out between parchment paper or silicone baking mats very quickly. When you take the chilled dough out of the refrigerator, be sure to let it warm up for a couple minutes to soften a bit so it doesn’t crack while you’re placing it; if it’s too soft, just place back in the refrigerator to chill.

The finished peach tourte. Baking seals the top layer to the bottom crust, and the sugar sprinkled over the top makes it incredibly crisp and flaky. If you see the photos below where the edges look jagged it’s because the top is so crisp it nearly shatters into shards when it’s cut. The combination of the lush, butter-and-sugar glazed peaches against the delicate. crumbly crust is, well, a match for any pie if I’m any judge. If you’re looking for a dessert to bring to a picnic this summer, this is the one. Happy summer baking!

Brown Butter Peach Tourte

 

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From Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan

Author: Anita Chu

Serves: (1) 9" round tart

Ingredients

Tart Bottom Crust:

• 1½ cups (204 g) all-purpose flour
• ½ cup (60 g) confectioners' sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 9 tablespoons (128 g) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 large egg yolk

Tart Top Crust:

• 1½ cups (204 g) all-purpose flour
• ½ cup (60 g) confectioners' sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 9 tablespoons (128 g) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 large egg yolk

Filling:

• 2 pounds (907 grams) ripe but firm peaches
• 3 tablespoons (43 grams) unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract or almond extract
• Juice of ¼ lemon

Instructions

For the tart bottom crust:

1. Put the flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt into a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine.
2. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture resembles pea-size crumbs.
3. Stir the egg yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition until the dough forms clumps and curds. Do not let the dough form into a solid ball.
4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Very lightly and sparingly knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.
5. Butter a 9" round fluted tart pan with a removable bottom, and lightly press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Don’t be too heavy-handed – you want to press the crust in so that the pieces stick to each other, but don’t want to press so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture.
6. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.
7. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
8. Butter the shiny side of a piece of foil and press it, buttered side down, tightly against the crust.
9. Place tart pan on a baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes.
10. Carefully remove the foil and press down the crust gently if it has puffed up. Move tart crust to wire rack and let cool.

For the tart top crust:

1. Put the flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt into a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine.
2. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture resembles pea-size crumbs.
3. Stir the egg yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition until the dough forms clumps and curds. Do not let the dough form into a solid ball.
4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Very lightly and sparingly knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.
5. Roll the dough out on a piece of parchment paper or wax paper to roughly 12" round. Place in refrigerator to chill while you make the filling.

For the filling:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Have a large bowl of ice cubes and cold water nearby.
2. Cut a small X in the base of each peach. Drop a few peaches at a time into the boiling water, leave them there for 30 seconds and then lift them out with a slotted spoon and drop them into the ice water. When they are cool enough to handle, slip off the skins. If you’ve got some hard-to-peel peaches, you can boil them for a few seconds more or just remove the remaining skin with a paring knife.
3. Dry the peaches, cut them in half, remove the pits and cut each peach into about a dozen pieces about an inch on a side. Put the peaches in a bowl.
4. Put the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and allow it to melt and then bubble. Stay close to the butter as it boils, and when it reaches a light caramel color, pull the pan from the heat.
5. Wait a minute or two, then pour the butter over the peaches.
6. Add the sugar, flour, salt and vanilla and gently stir everything together. Finish with the lemon juice, tasting as you go.

To finish the tourte:

1. Put the tart pan on the lined baking sheet. Pour the filling into the tart shell, smoothing the top. You should have just enough filling to come level with the edges of the crust.
2. Remove the circle of dough from the refrigerator and let it rest for a couple of minutes, just until it’s soft enough to maneuver without cracking. Brush the edges of the tart shell with water, then position the circle of dough over the crust.
3. Press the rim of the tourte with your fingers to glue the two pieces together and then, pressing on the rim as you go, cut the top circle even with the edges of the pan.
4. Use a knife or a small cookie cutter to remove a circle of dough from the center of the tourte—this is your steam vent.
5. Brush the surface of the tourte lightly with cold water and sprinkle it generously with sugar.
6. Bake the tourte for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the crust is deeply golden brown and, most important, the butter is bubbling. If you think the crust is browning too quickly cover the tourte lightly with a foil tent.
7. Transfer the tourte, still on its baking sheet, to a rack and allow it to cool until just warm or room temperature before serving.

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