Recipe for Brioche Tart with Apricots

Prepare the dough the day before: dissolve the yeast in warm water. In the bowl of your mixer fitted with a dough hook, place the flour. Make a well, add the dissolved yeast. Mix. Add the sugar, salt, eggs, and soft butter cut into cubes along with the milk. Knead until the dough becomes smooth and homogeneous. Let your dough rise for about 1.5 hours. It should double in size. (I place it in the refrigerator overnight and take it out the next day.)

Pastry cream: bring the milk to a boil with the vanilla sugar. Add the powdered vanilla and let it steep for 10 minutes. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and add the cornstarch. Mix well. Strain the milk, then pour it over the egg yolk and sugar mixture while whisking thoroughly. Return to the saucepan and thicken over low heat, whisking continuously. Pour into a container, cover, and let cool.

Shaping: take the dough out of the refrigerator. Place it on a lightly floured work surface. Punch down (release the air) and begin to shape it into a round form. Roll out with a rolling pin to a thickness of 4 to 5 millimeters to achieve a roughly round shape of 28 cm in diameter. Slide this rolled-out dough into a tart pan of 27.5 cm in diameter (or a ring mold) or place a bowl of 11 to 12 cm in diameter in the center.

Flour your hands and reshape the dough by pressing with your fingertips to ensure it is evenly spread in the mold. Spread the pastry cream over the dough. Remove the bowl and cut the small circle into 8 pieces. Gently fold each triangle of dough from the center over the cream.

Seal by pressing with your fingers. Place the halves of the apricots in the cavities. Let the tart rise again for about 40 minutes at room temperature, covered with a slightly damp cloth.

To finish, preheat your oven to 180°C. Brush with 1 egg yolk diluted in a little milk. Sprinkle with sliced almonds and/or sugar grains. Bake the apricot brioche tart in the oven with a bowl of hot water for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 170°C and continue baking for 15 minutes.