Almond Tart

Not may pictures for this because both of my hands were usually busy and I couldn't leave the eggs alone for very long when making the custard. This turned out a lot better than I predicted though. This tart was my first attempt at a custard, as well as my first attempt at the pastry dough, so I figured failure was eminent...
I mixed the dough by hand, and was probably easier than using my hand mixer (although for anyone feeling like buying me a gift, using the paddle attachment on a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer would have been nice too...) Here it is before I chilled it, wrapped in cling-wrap.

After letting it chill, rolling it out did not go exactly as planned. Despite heavily flouring my counter, the dough was not going to come up in one piece. Add marble pastry board to my wish list. In the end, I just mashed the several pieces of dough into the pan until it was evenly smushed into place. It wasn't pretty, but it worked alright. Once I eventually got to try a slice, you couldn't tell the crust wasn't even.

Making the custard went a little better than the tart shell, although it was a bit intense. Lots and LOTS of whisking. Below is the milk and lemon waiting to simmer next to the egg yolks (8 of them, yikes) mixed with the flour and sugar. This was about the last time until my hands were free until I put the thing in the oven.

I basically whisked for the next 20 min straight while the milk simmered, then while I added the milk to the egg mixture, then while the custard mix thickened in the sauce pan. After all that whisking, I decided I needed a drink while the tart baked, so going with the almond theme, I made a whiskey-amaretto sour. Yum.

Here is the tart right after coming out of the oven, still slightly puffed up. It took a good hour for this to finally cool down so I could cut into it.

It was supposed to be accompanied by some sort of fruit topping (the recipe called for cherry pie topping, yuck) but I just tried it by itself. It was pretty good the night I made it, but much better the next day after letting it sit covered with plastic wrap in the fridge. If you wanted a topping, I think some candied peaches would be nice, as would some simple whipped cream. The almond flavor is strong but not overwhelming, and could be adjusted easily by just altering the amount of extract. I'd definitely make this again, and now I know custards are not to be feared.