Quince Crumble Tart

Hmm. The shortcrust pastry was very weird, very wet and sticky - no wonder, it contained not only a whole egg but also an additional egg yolk. That made it really difficult to handle, even after cooling it in the fridge for several hours. In the end, I used a trick: I often roll out pastry between two sheets of parchment paper. I did that, removed one sheet, lined the tart tin with the pastry and left the other sheet in place - after all, it had to be blind baked with parchment paper and baking beans, right?

Unfortunately, though, the pastry baked well at the edges but stayed moist in the middle; because I didn't want to end up with an undercooked pastry, I pre-baked the pastry a lot longer than instructed, and once I baked the tart with quince filling, crumble and all, I ended up with burnt edges.

Also, it didn't help that I used a different crumble. I had forgotten to buy rolled oats, and I happened to have a one third quantity of Ottolenghi's crumble (which I of course used thawed). The problem is that this crumble needs an hour to be baked; I don't know how much time the crumble from this recipe would have needed (probably less, given the short baking time in this recipe), but that in any case didn't help.

Looking back, it would have been better remove the second sheet as well, flour it again and then return it, so that the pastry would stick less and hopefully bake more evenly. Also, given that the quince filling is already cooked anyway, it's a lot easier to just fully bake the pastry, have your quince filling ready, bake the crumble on a baking tray and then just assemble while everything is hot. Yes, that might be cheating, but who cares (and who would notice)? Additionally, the crust won't get soggy either!

The flavour of the pastry, once it was baked, was really nice, so I was hopeful it would all be worth the hassle. Unfortunately, though, I didn't actually taste the pastry at all once the quince filling was added. The quince filling was very nice and is something I might consider making again. I didn't add the cornstarch, but I will probably do that next time as the filling ended up being just a tad too liquid. DH even suggested poaching the quinces like in this recipe (with or without the rose water) and using them like apples in apple pie. I think the quince does need some strong flavours, so ground nuts or wholemeal flour will be a good idea (hmm, what if you omit the eggs or at least the egg yolk, and replace the ground almonds with ground hazelnuts?).

Also, as nice as this tart was, but be warned that you will spend a long time in the kitchen.

Served for tea with Scones and Walnut Cake with Coffee Syrup - all of them very nice, but the Quince Crumble Tart actually felt more like a dessert than a tea time treat.