Gateau Basque Cake

When I was in my 20’s I spent a lot of time on the South West coast of France. We hung out at the beaches  during the day and people-watched at corner cafe’s at night. The food in that region during the summer is blanketed with an abundance of juicy tomatoes, heirloom peppers, olives, cured meats, seafood and AMAZING pastries.  The Basque region of Spain has a big influence on the local cuisine, and boy what a treat!  It’s simple clean food with smoke, refreshing acid and yes.. not too sweet or buttery desserts. For me, Gateau Basque sums it all up.

Gateau Basque is a traditional tart filled with pastry cream, vanilla bean, brandied black cherry, and almond from the French side of the Basque region. It’s one of my favorite cakes because of its soft, creamy inside, and crisp, not too sweet crust. In this version we soaked dried cherries in red wine and added rum to the pastry cream. The result: an adult pop tart with elegance and snap. Try it out, you won’t be disappointed.

Chef StevO from the HOG

Gateau Basque

Serves 8-10 people

Ingredients
For the pastry cream
4 cups milk
3/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 pound butter
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
2 vanilla beans
1 tablespoon Rum

For the Dough
2 1/2 cups almond meal
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 pound butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
zest of one lemon
zest of one orange

For the Cherry Filling
1 1/2 cups of dried cherries
1 bottle of red wine
3/4 cup sugar

Special Equipment
pastry bags
pastry brush
tartlet pans or 9” cake pans
rolling pin
plastic bowl scraper

Instructions
For the pastry cream
Scrape the vanilla bean and place in the milk. Bring to a boil.

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale. Add the flour and whisk until incorporated. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture while whisking and place the mixture back on the fire.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick. Stir in the butter and rum and pour into a shallow pan.

Cover immediately with plastic wrap and refrigerate to set.

For the Dough
Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl with the zest. Cut in the butter. Mix in the eggs and almond extract and mix until dough just comes together.

For the Cherry Filling
Combine the cherries and wine in a saucepan and simmer until the wine reduces by half. Add the sugar and continue to simmer until it becomes a thick syrup.

To Build
Place 3/4 of the dough into the bottom and sides of a tart pan. Fill with pastry cream and cherries.  Cover with remaining dough.

Brush with egg wash and bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Sweet Treats , brandy, cherries, cherry, cooking classes, cooking events, cooking parties, french, gateau basque, hands on gourmet, pastry cream, san francisco, tart, vanilla bean. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.