Morello Cherry Frangipane

So I had a jar of morello cherries which needed used up, the result.. Morello Cherry Frangipane. The quantity was a 350g jar of morello cherries in light syrup. The syrup i could use to make a hot cherry icing, by reducing the syrup and mixing with icing sugar, finishes off the Morello Cherry Frangipane perfectly. Three key parts to this recipe are the sweet pastry base, the morello cherries and the frangipane. The sweet pastry is as basic as you can get with butter, sugar, plain flour and a touch of water to bring it together. With the frangipane which is made up with butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds, plain flour and almond extract. I combined the drained cherries with the frangipane before scooping into the sweet pastry lined flan tin.

This is just one solution to using up spare jars of cherries, you could drain off the cherries and make a muffin or cupcake batter, maybe mixed through a light fluffy pancake batter, or even use with pork and other meat dishes.

Preheat oven to 180°C/ 160°C fan and bake for around 40 minutes

Morello Cherry Frangipane recipe

For the sweet pastry base

200 grams plain flour

120 grams butter or cake margarine

70 grams caster sugar

1 to 2 teaspoons water to bind

For the Frangipane

225g butter

225g caster sugar

1 teaspoon almond essence
175g ground almonds

75g plain flour

100g beaten free range eggs or 2 medium

50g flaked almonds (optional)

Morello Cherries drained overnight, reserve the light syrup and reduce. Add the reduced cherry syrup to 100g of icing sugar a bit at a time, you won't need all the syrup.

Start by making your sweet pastry and lining a prepared fluted flan tin or whatever pie tin you have. Now make your frangipane and fold in the morello cherries spread the frangipane cherry mix into your lined tin and smooth evenly, bake for around 40 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool for 20 minutes then remove outer tin, leave to cool completely before removing the tin base. Make up your hot cherry icing then drizzle over the Morello Cherry frangipane, allow to set then portion up and serve with custard, cream or on its own. If your short of time then you can dust with icing sugar or eat as is.

The resulting flavour is a mixture of the sour morello cherries and subtle almond frangipane. Do bear in mind that the morello cherries will still retain a lot of their natural juices so the flan will be moist. Best eaten on the day but will keep for a couple of days in a sealed container.