Baking Challenge Week 29 (Late!) - Summer - Nectarine Almond Tart

I was never much of a pie lover growing up.  The texture of most cooked fruits really put me off--to this day, I still can't abide applesauce.  Chocolate cream pie?  Sure.  Blueberry or cherry or peach?  No, thank you.

But tastes change, and I'm making up for lost time.  What says "summer" as much as a seasonal fruit pie?

I looked at a lot of recipes in my favorite baking books, and one stood out above the rest as unusual (and knowing that nectarines were on sale this week, timely.)  It's an almond cream base with sliced nectarines arrayed on top.

But I'm not sharing the recipe...because it turned out a little weird.

The almond "cream" had a very strange, grainy texture.  The blanched almonds got ground finely with flour (to keep it from becoming almond butter, I'd wager) and added to a creamed butter/sugar/egg mix.  But creaming butter and sugar together incorporates a lot of air pockets (usually that's the point!) so the whole thing is grainy and fluffy at the same time.  Very, very strange.

I will say this, though.  We're eating it anyway, because nectarine + almond = awesome.  I had no idea!