How to Screw up Granny Omi's Nut Tart

A guest post by Jo.

Petero's mom, Granny Omi, makes the best nut tart in the world. It's famous- Just ask anyone in Port Elizabeth. It is creamy, crunchy and toffee like all at once. The nuts are perfectly toasted and are a wonderful textural contrast to the fudgy filling.

A few weeks back, petero decided that he would bake/cook a different recipe for his Friday blog post. As we all know, The man is just (slightly obsessive-) so he takes this kind of commitment very seriously. Even though we are married 22 years we nearly divorced last week over the biscotti.
So petero calls Granny Omi yesterday and asks if it would be ok to post her secret recipe to his blog. "Ok"- says she, (once it was established that it was really him on the phone and not Arnie) "As long as no one in Houston see it!!!!!" Hmmm.

Well, I don't know how he did it, but he totally managed to mess up this perfect tart royally. Looks yummy in the picture, but the proof is in the pudding. (photo: before baking)
Directions:
Make a very sweet pastry using flour, a huge amount of butter, a lot of sugar, one egg, baking powder and 1 tsp of vanilla essence.

Filling:
It's really important that you mis-measure the sugar and double the butter. The almonds should be raw cause god forbid, they actually over cook. Melt the sugar and butter together, add the nuts and boil gently for 5 mins. Definitely do not cook the caramel for longer than the 5 minutes. Add vanilla and pour into pre-baked pastry shell. Instead of a standard pie dish, make sure to use a pyrex that is too small and much too deep. Then bake it for 9 minutes less than the recipe calls for. (30 minutes, but it was overflowing apparently, hence the cutting of the time)
Cut into a nice wedge, and enjoy with a cup of strong coffee (to cut the sweetness)

My darling, I love you, but please, please, stop this Friday cooking obsession. Life is just too short to eat bad nut tarts.