French Fruit Tart
This showstopper is the perfect dessert to bring to a dinner party. You’ll make a sweet and simple press-in tart crust, rich, silky custard and create your own mosaic of fresh fruits before glazing with a few spoonfuls of your favorite jam.
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Ingredients
Alice Medrich’s Perfect Butter Tart Crust
- 5 ounces Salted butter 140g
- 1/4 cup Sugar
- Pinch Salt
- 1 cup Flour 130g
- 1/4 tsp Almond extract optional
Pastry Cream
- 4 Egg yolks 80g
- 1 Tbsp Corn or potato starch + 1 tsp
- 1/3 cup Sugar
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract or seeds from 1/2 a vanilla bean
- 1 cup Milk
Assembly
- 2 baskets Assorted berries
- 1/4 cup Apricot or strawberry jam
- 1 Tbsp water
Instructions
Alice Medrich’s Perfect Butter Tart Crust
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Melt the butter and cool for a few minutes.
- Mix the sugar, salt and flour in a medium bowl. Pour the butter over the flour mixture and mix with a fork until just combined.
- Press into an 8″ or 9″ tart pan, cleaning up the edges at the top with a swiping motion of your thumb. Bake until golden brown (a bit like a like golden honey color). Set aside to cool
Pastry Cream
- Warm up the milk in a medium saucepan (the thicker the pot, the better) over medium-low.
- While the milk is warming, place the yolks, sugar, starch and vanilla in a bowl and whisk until light.
- Grab a cup or a ladle, start whisking your egg mixture and slowly pour in the warm milk, whisking the whole time, until you’ve added most of it in. Now return the whisk to the pot, and while whisking over low heat, slowly pour the egg mixture into the pot.
- Keep whisking! Your custard will begin to thicken, and once it does to the consistency of a pudding, pour the custard out into a bowl or rimmed cookie sheet and let cool.
Assembly
- Bring the water and jam to a boil. Stir cook for 30 more seconds. Pour through a strainer into a bowl and set aside.
- Spoon the pastry cream into the tart crust and chill in the freezer for a few minutes.
- Get your berries ready! Arrange them in any pattern of your choosing over the chilled pastry cream. Gently spoon or brush the jam over the berries for a shiny glaze.
