Peach and brown butter tart

You will need a 27cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Preheat an oven to 200 degrees/gas 6. Start with the pastry, which is tricky to work with, but delightfully friable. Put everything in a food processor and blitz till it forms a dryish ball, feeding the water in gradually so it doesn’t become too sticky.

Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for one hour. Don’t skip this step as it will make life easier and the pastry much better.

When it has finished chilling, roll the pastry out, using some extra flour if necessary, until it is a good few centimetres wider then your tart tin. Roll it gently around your rolling pin like a blanket and then roll it onto the tin, pressing the pastry into the sides of the tin and cutting off some of the excess that overhangs the edges. You want some excess, just not loads. Keep the spare bits for emergency pastry Band-Aids later.

Chill again – this time for just 20 minutes or so. Then blind-bake it at 200 degrees/gas 6, lined with greaseproof paper and dried beans, for 15 minutes, before removing the paper and beans and cooking for a further five minutes. The final stage – phew – involves brushing the case with egg yolk while it’s hot (this seals it) and cook it for a further 30 seconds. Take out of the oven and let it cool.

Turn the oven down to 190 degrees/gas 5 for the next stage of the cooking process. To make the filling, whisk the eggs, yolks, sugar and vanilla seeds together until pale, thick and creamy. Gently whisk in the cream. Melt and brown the butter in a frying pan by letting it foam away until it starts to look and smell a bit brown and nutty – but stay vigilant as it can happen quickly. Stir it into the egg/cream mixture along with the almonds. Pour half this mixture into the pastry case. Quarter and stone the peaches and perhaps cut some into halves again and arrange the peaches in the filling and then pour over the remaining mixture, taking care not to overfill the case (you may not need all the mixture, depending on the size of the peaches).

Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown and just set. It may look a little wobbly, but shouldn’t look raw. If it is too runny, cover loosely with parchment paper so the top of the pie does not brown too much and cook out a little longer. A little wobble is okay. It will start to set when cooling down.

I served this at room temperature with some vanilla cream.