I use gluten-free flour for this, and any fruit will do. I’ve used cherries (pitted and halved), apricots halved, pears (peeled) and apples (also peeled), as well as raspberries. All turn out brilliant. Really, I think just about anything would work.
Might well be the best, simplest tart recipe in the galaxy. (If, that is, you like things on the not-too-sweet side; also, the texture is very dense rather than cakey, or even tarty; in fact I’m not sure why it’s called a tart… so if you’d rather call it something else, I think you should.)
Almond Raspberry Tart
(The original recipe calls it a tart, so I’m just being authentic to its origins. But really, it’s a torte.)
1 1/4 cups sliced almonds
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, in small pieces
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 to 3 cups fresh raspberries
icing sugar
Place almonds and sugar in food processor and blend 30 seconds. Add butter and process into fine crumbs. Add eggs and process until creamy. Add flour and process until blended. Spread over greased 9-inch flan pan or pie plate. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
Top with fruit. Bake in preheated 350F oven, 30 minutes or until just golden and centre is cooked. (Note: I keep it in 40 minutes because I like it on the slightly drier side.)
Serve dusted with icing sugar.
Garnish with additional raspberries/fruit.
— (From Mary McGrath’s column in the The Toronto Star, July 26/ 1997)
(Note: best eaten with a pot of tea and book nearby; also makes an acceptable breakfast substitute in my world.)
cherry version, pre-oven
today's forage 
if you do not have a food processor (should have bid at T-24 but I was busy) can you substitute some other handy jim dandy kitchen appliance? I have a half-hearted Oster blender. Will that work? Or am I doomed to merely glance at any recipe that requires a food processor with a whispery sigh, and just turn the page?
Oh dear. I don’t know if this would work in a blender (love Oster, BTW; I have a ten thousand year old model, all steel and pride and delicious history).
Maybe part blender, part elbow grease would do it.
Sighing and whispering seems easier though…
🙂
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I would far rather dense and tart than cakey and sweet. And I think you could easily make this without any equipment at all (aside from a pan and your hands) by buying ground almonds and mixing the crust ingredients by hand. That would probably work better than the elderly Oster thing-y.
Agreed. Ground almonds is the way to go. In fact, I do use them. And I still throw them into the food processor, just not as long. Love my food processor. (:
If you try this, Elizabeth, I’d be very interested to know what you think, or if you have suggestions to improve on it, results of unusual fruit experiments, etc.!
So I made two of them, one with apples and one with partridgeberries, and served them to my book club this evening. They were very successful, especially the partridgeberry one. Delicious! I noticed that there is a somewhat similar recipe in Nigella Lawson’t cookbook Feast. Funnily enough, where you say “the texture is very dense rather than cakey, or even tarty; in fact I’m not sure why it’s called a tart”, Nigella says “I call this a pudding but it has something of the soft-set pie about it”. Whatever it’s called, it’s delicious! Next time I might experiment with cooking it a bit less and perhaps using just almonds, no flour. The ground almonds worked fine – no need for a food processor.