Almond Flour Crust Peach Tart

I've never even thought to attempt baking a tart, but when we went to Trader Joe's last week and bought a giant box of peaches, we knew we were going to have to bake something with them.  I found a yummy looking recipe for a peach tart, but it just didn't seem to me that a regular flour crust was going to be good enough.  I'm so glad I trusted my gut and looked up an almond flour crust recipe because this tart turned out absolutely perfect.  You get a great texture and flavor from the almond flour crust that pairs perfectly with the sweetness of the peaches.

Again, I'm not a big baker so my expectations were set very low.  I didn't even attempt to do a crimp or "flute" the edge of the crust because I wasn't even sure if it would turn out.  Somehow, some way, everything worked out.  Since I was using a square pan and not a round one, I made two layers of peaches.  For the first layer, I just lay the peaches straight across the pan, overlapping slightly.  After that, I decided it didn't look pretty enough and I still had a ton of sliced peach left over, so I cut the slices in half again and made a swirl pattern.  The ratio of crust to filling ended up perfect, but it did take a little longer to bake with the double-layered peaches.

Since I was mixing two different recipes (one for crust, one for filling), I played around with the baking time a little bit.  I only pre-baked my crust for 10 minutes and thought that would be good enough, but because of all the juices from the peaches, the bottom got a little soggy.  Now, if you know anything about baking, you know that a soggy bottom is NOT a good thing.  So in the recipe below I say to pre-bake the tart crust for 15 minutes, which should give it the extra time to crisp up.  If I'm being totally honest, I didn't mind the soggy bottom at all.  The sides of the tart shell still had a great firm texture and the flavor of the tart was so amazing that I ate the soggy bottom anyways.

Total Time: 1 hour

Servings: 9-12

Ingredients:

For the Crust:

2 cups almond flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbs butter

3 tbs maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla (optional)

For the Filling:

3/4 cup sugar

2 tbs flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbs butter

3-5 peaches, thinly sliced

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Add almond flour and salt into a medium-sized bowl.  Add cubed butter and mix until thoroughly incorporated.  Add maple syrup and vanilla and mix.
3. Press dough evenly across the bottom and into corners of your tin an flute the edges (optional).
4. Pre-bake for 15 minutes while you work on the other tart components.
5. Add sugar, 2 tbs flour, 1/4 tsp salt and butter to a medium bowl.  Mix & pinch the butter into the dry ingredients until crumbly.
6. Arrange peaches overlapping in concentric circle over pastry, starting from the outside.
7. Sprinkle the butter mixture over the top.
8. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until shiny and the crust is golden brown.
9. Set aside to cool for at least 10 minutes before enjoying.

Look at that slice 🤤