Recipe: Homemade Swedish gooseberry and almond tart

There is a double dose of gooseberries with this recipe will help you to appreciate the wonderful taste and texture of gooseberries. Essentially a rustic style pastry case is filled with a gooseberry compote made with green cooking berries, topped with some gorgeous sweet (ideally red) gooseberries and then finished off with a sprinkling of almond flakes.

Summary

Serves: 6-8
Level: Moderate
Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking: 40 minutes
Total: 45 minutes

Tips

• I like the rustic nature of the pastry which uses rolled oats, but you can substitute a traditional shortcrust pastry if you prefer.

• If you can’t find any sweet red gooseberries you can use any other variety, but you might need to add more sugar to taste and cook them for longer.

Ingredients

3 tbsp*(3½ tbsp*caster (superfine) sugar

60 g(½ cup)plain (all-purpose) flour

100 g(1 cup)rolled oats or porridge oats

100 g(1 stick)butter

1 egg yolk

*Don't mix the units!

Filling

400 g(1 lb)cooking gooseberries, such as Invicta or Careless

90 g(½ cup)sugar*

90 g(½ cup)light brown Muscovado sugar

400 g(1 lb)sweet red gooseberries, such as Xenia

15 g(½ oz)almond flakes (slivers)

*If the cooking gooseberries are underripe there is enough pectin in them to use ordinary sugar, but if they are ripe use jam sugar or add a teaspoon of lemon juice to avoid the mixture being too runny.

Method

1. Mix the sugar, flour, rolled oats and butter for the pastry in a food processor until it forms fine breadcrumbs.

2. Add the egg yolk and process for 20-30 seconds until the pastry clings together. Remove the pastry from the machine and lightly gather it together to form a smooth ball. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

3. Top and tail the cooking gooseberries, rinse and add to a pan with a couple of tablespoons of water. Bring to the boil, stirring gently until the gooseberries burst.

4. Add the sugars and let the fruit boil until most of the liquid has gone and the mixture looks jammy. Taste and add more sugar if necessary.

5. Turn off the heat and add the red gooseberries (top and tailed if you want), give the mixture a stir and leave to cool.

6. Press the pastry out into a tart tin with a removable base, such as a 35 x 12 cm (14” x 5”) tin or 23 cm (9") diameter tin. (I find it easier to roll the pastry out even though it is too crumbly to transfer to the tin in one piece.) Leave to rest again in the fridge for 30 minutes.

7. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F, gas 6, fan 180°C).

8. Spoon the gooseberry mixture into the pastry case, top with flaked almonds and bake for 25-30 minutes until the almonds are golden brown.

9. Serve warm with fläderblomsglass (elderflower ice cream) or cold with whipped cream. Garnish with some nice sweet uncooked gooseberries if desired.

Recipe courtesy of John Duxbury and Swedish Food.