With its freshly cooked sweet yeast bread base, this German Plum Tart would be ideal for a weekend brunch or lunch. If you are out of plums, use apricots.

Ingredients

• 2 tblsp sugar
• 1 tblsp Surebake yeast
• ½ cup warm milk
• 2 cups bread making quality flour (see Cook’s Tips)
• ½ tsp salt
• 50 grams butter, melted and cooled
• 1 egg, beaten
• 250 grams carton crème fraiche or sour cream
• 3 tblsp sugar (demerara is nice here)
• 2 tsp finely grated orange rind
• 2 eggs
• 16 even sized poached or canned whole plums

Method

1. Stir 1 teaspoon sugar and the yeast into the milk. Set aside for 10 minutes or until the mixture becomes frothy
2. Put the flour, salt and remaining sugar into a food processor and pulse to combine.
3. With the motor running pour the frothy yeast mixture, butter and egg into the food processor and process only until the mixture forms a soft dough. Remove the dough and knead lightly on a floured board. Turn the dough over in a greased bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for about 1 – 1½ hours or until doubled in bulk.
4. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured board and gently deflate. On a floured board gently roll the pastry out large enough to line the base and sides of a 23cm greased and paper lined square cake tin. Approximately 26cm square
5. Carefully spread the filling over the base and arrange whole plums evenly in the filling. Cover and leave to rise for a further 30-40 minutes or until the dough doubles in bulk again.
6. Bake at 190°C for 20 minutes then reduce the temperature to 160°C and continue cooking for a further 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes before removing.

Filling

1. Combine the crème fraiche, sugar, orange rind and eggs in a bowl. Beat with a wire whisk until smooth.

Cooks Tips

- Bread quality flour has a higher amount of gluten in the flour. Most flour brands will be clearly marked for you to see which one to buy. As a rule I always use Elfin High Grade in my kitchen. - Make sure when you line the cake tin with paper, that the paper comes right up the sides of the tin and even a centimeter higher. This way you can use the paper to pull the tart from the tin.