Pêches à la Bourdaloue

Pêches à la Bourdaloue (peaches enclosed in a frangipane tart) teaches a pastry lesson more valuable than decoration: poached fruit must be tender, cool, and thoroughly drained before it meets a cream expected to hold it. Leave syrup clinging to the peaches and even excellent frangipane loosens around them.

The original entry assumed a pastry station already holding the complete Apricots à la Bourdaloue (No. 2549) formula, trays of poached fruit, and a salamander waiting for the final flash of color. At home, one 9-inch flawn-crust, three peaches in a snug saucepan, and an ordinary oven broiler do the work. The brigade scale and specialized equipment are scaffolding, so they go. The pale pre-baked crust, crushed macaroons folded through the cream, fruit enclosed between two layers, and buttered macaroon finish stay, because they are the dish. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Cut into it and you find coral-gold peaches held inside almond cream, with a tender crust beneath and toasted macaroon crumbs above. Poach gently, peel while warm, then drain the halves longer than impatience finds reasonable. That is the step that decides the tart.