Pink PralineTart

because Lyon is far away

There are so many places that I still want to visit, but there are few that I have a burning desire to visit next week if possible - please! Lyon is one of them. I sometimes open a map and study the road trip options from London and imagine driving through the French country side, making small detours to the villages along the way for coffee and lunch breaks. I've learnt the names of all the bouchons and boulangeries by heart, that brought to the city the title of the Food capital of the world, studied their menus and of course  marked  their locations on the city map. So yes,  I am well prepared in case the Universe decides to grant me a sudden opportunity to go. 

This tart, well, not this, but the Tarte au Praline Rose is an institution of Lyon's gastronomy. The other day I watched a TV programme about how it's made in one of the best boulangeries in Lyon, Maison Jocteur. After that I just had to give it a go. The recipe that follows is a combination of a few recipes found online, and Eric Lanlard's recipe.

 Did I have pralines - no; did I buy them - no; I couldn't wait a few days for them to be delivered, and although I knew that home made ones won't give me the same results, I decided to make them any way. Lucky for me that the difficulty level was - easy and I only had to come up with two ideas of how to recycle my ruined batches before I got something that resembled  the real thing. But, I was determined to do it.

Once I got my  pink pralines out of the way, the rest was just straight forward baking.

The result that I got after the tarts were left for a few hours to chill, I have to admit, surprised me - in a good way. Since I haven't tasted them before, I didn't have anything to compare them with. So it was all down to the first bite and it was all thumbs up. We all liked it. If Lyon and a boulangerie that sells them are far away from you, here is how to satisfy you curiosity:

Pink Praline Tart

For Praline:

100g sugar

10 drops red food colouring

100g almond kernels

15 table spoons of water

Place sugar and water in a pan over low heat, until sugar dissolves, then bring it to boil and cook until sugar reaches 135C, about 7 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat, add almonds and food colouring and stir until sugar starts to look like wet sand and crystallise around almonds. Break up all the clumps of almond and turn out onto a lined oven tray, leave to cool. They can be stored in an air tight container for up to one month.

Pastry:

300g flour

4 tbs caster sugar  

200 g unsalted butter

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp cold water

2 tbsp vanilla paste or extract

Make and bake the shortcrust pastry  in 6 individual 10 cm pastry cases. Leave them to cool while you make the praline cream:

200 ml single cream

25 gr icing sugar

pink praline you made earlier, crushed - reserve a handful for decoration

Place the crushed praline in a saucepan with single cream and icing sugar, bring to the boil, then leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Pour into the baked pastry, allow to cool again and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Use the remaining crushed praline to decorate the tarts.

If you find them a bit too sweet, serve with some crème fraîche on side.

Praline recipe adapted from the Feast magazine