Let’s just say growing up being offered red bean sweets, mooncakes, and spongy jelly roll cakes wasn’t exactly nurturing to having a proper sweet tooth. Chinese sweets are weird and rather despicable. The only thing I can remember enjoying were the whip cream and strawberry layered sponge cakes, and even those were only mildly sweet. My sweet tooth is slowly developing though and chocolate is very high on my list.  Lemon and fruit are up there too in desserts.  And anything with vanilla bean or caramel.

 

My buddy, Wan, is my go-to pastry expert. I am admittedly, just getting into making sweets and baking more these days. When I first met him at work a few years ago, he had a photo album of food dishes that he had made, both savory and sweet. I was so impressed and intrigued. We are talking pre-food blog days. Even pre- blog. And actual printed photos, not digital online photos. 

Every time I have hosted a dinner party or a cocktail party, he has graciously made some amazing concoction and passed it off like ‘oh it was nothing’.  It’s hard to do a whole menu for a party and also take care of a fabulous dessert item.  Between him and my friend, Bethany, who makes specialty sandwich cookies and sweets, I have had two crutches to not have to learn how to make sweets.

Over the years we have had the pleasure of eating his chocolate tortes, caramel tarts with little caramel animals he made, various fruit tarts, layered sponge cakes, souffles etc etc etc.  

 

 

At Thanksgiving last year in Palm Springs, he whipped up a chocolate tart with an almond crust in no time. Basically, while I was taking a nap. It was so delicious that I attempted to make it for my family at Christmas, with much less success.  When fresh berries were in season, I enlisted his help at my place to figure out why my tart did not come out of the pan among other problems. 

 

 

The almond tart shell recipe is the same one that can be used for several different tarts. It’s so flavorful and is a bit more resilient than the  classic French tart crust that can get soggy with the créme patisserie right next to it. I recently made a lemon curd tart using one of the tart shells I had frozen from this baking session. It came out amazing, especially since I served it with a chocolate flourless cake. But that is another posting altogether lemon and chocolate, who would have thought?

 

 

These tarts were made the day of a small Sunday dinner gathering at my place, and we only got through a quarter of the big one. I made guests take them home and also I had my boyfriend take them over to our friends’ office the next day and certainly surprised and impressed them with these not so DIY looking sweets. Anyone can make chocolate chip cookies for the office.  Leave it to me to make French fruit tarts.

 

Food is truly the simplest way to make people happy.  

 

Toasted Almond Crust

 

Ingredients:

makes a 10-11″ tart or 5-6 small tarts, about 4″ in diameter

serves 8-10 people

Total cooking time:  1hour 40 minutes // Prep time 20 minutes, chilling time 1 hr, Baking time about 20 minutes

 

1/2 cup almonds, toasted and cooled

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

   1/4 cup powdered sugar

   1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick chilled unsalted butter

  1 large egg yolk

 

Special Tools:

10″ removable bottom tart pan, I prefer the non stick ones since I am no pro. These are great for savory tarts too.

 or 

5 of the 4″ rounds miniature tart pans with removable bottoms as well

 

 

Preparation:

 

Combine almonds & sugar in a food processor processor; grind until nuts are finely chopped, but not a paste. Add flour, powdered sugar, and salt, and butter. Blend by pulsing the processor until a coarse meal forms. Add the egg yolk and blend until moist clumps form, about 30 seconds. Knead the dough into a ball.

 

Prepare the tart pan(s) by greasing with butter or spray and dusting with flour. Shake off any excess flour. The flour is the key to being able to remove it from the bottom later.  This was the step I did not do before.  Oops. 

 

Press the dough evenly onto the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pan. Pierce the bottom all over with a fork. 

Cover the pan with foil and freeze crust at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.

 

 

 

Preheat oven to 375°F. 

Bake the tart shell uncovered until deep golden brown, checking often and gently pressing the  sides and bottom with back of fork during first 15 minutes when the crust tends to puff up or bubble. About 20 minutes total baking time. Cool completely on a rack at room temperature.

 

 

 

Once the tart shell is cooked and cooled, it can be frozen, in a ziploc bag for 4-6 weeks.  

In general, you also want to wait until right before serving the tart to fill it with the cream to prevent a soggy mess.

 

 

 

Pastry Cream (Creme Pâtisserie)

Cook Time: 10 minutes, chilling time after about an hour.

 

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups whole milk

1 vanilla bean split, seeds scraped

3 egg yolks

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

 

Special Tools:

A double boiler or a metal mixing bowl and a saucepan

whisk

 

Preparation:

While your tart shell is baking you can make the cream. In a small saucepan or double boiler or makeshift double boiler, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam. Add the vanilla bean seeds. While the milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth. 

 

Once the milk is steaming, slowly add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture. This will allow the eggs to be slowly tempered to the temperature of the hot mixture and not actually cook the eggs. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard reaches 170F on a digital thermometer and is very thick. 

 

Remove from heat. In a metal bowl, cover the cream with plastic wrap, pushing it down to cling to the surface of the cream, like in the photo. This will prevent a thick skin from forming. Allow to cool to room temperature before putting in the refrigerator to chill.

 

* Cornstarch will guarantee a thick cream that will hold its shape when portioned out.  Some pastry cream recipes have flour in them as well but Wan does not use flour because you taste it and it takes away from the overall texture of the cream.

 

Tart Assembly:

 

Now that your tart shell is fully baked and cooling and your cream is cooling as well, you can rinse and drain your fruit of choice.  Berries were in season so we went with those.  They are also a great choice because you don’t have to cut them up or worry about browning. We used blackberries and red raspberries from the Farmer’s Market. Gently wash and drain them. I like to lay them on a flour sack or paper towels and allow them to air dry.

 

When you are ready to serve the tart, fill the shell with the desired amount of cream, then place your berries in a creative pattern or whatever you are inspired to do. I asked Wan about the glazing the tart with a seedless jam.  This is not something he does.  I have to agree, with fruit this good, I think it’s an unnecessary step for the home chef.  They aren’t going to sit in a pastry display all day.

 

If I managed to make these and remove them from the pan on my second try, it’s definitely a sweet that one can master in no time. 

 

Next on my list is a gallette. I know just who to ask for help on that. I better hurry because summer fruits are almost over.

 

 

Wallflour Tips:

 

- Using cornstarch for the cream will help it hold it’s shape after cutting it and also will make it have a nice thick consistency

 

- push the crust down periodically while baking to prevent large bubbles from forming

 

- make sure the fruit is washed and dry before assembling the crust

 

- Assemble the tart just before serving to prevent sogginess.  It should be tasty if kept in the fridge for a couple days.  They don’t last long though.

 

-  When ready to serve, remove the tart from the pan by pushing the bottom and the tart upwards then slide a thin knife between the shell and the pan.  It should come off easily and be slid right onto the serving platter.

 

- Tart shell and cream can be made a day ahead, then assembled right before serving.