Thursday, September 24, 2009

Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream and Chocolate

The colours are a bit wonky in this one, but there's only so much I could try using my primitive editing program...the kiwis looked much better than above.

I made this fruit tart a couple weeks ago when D's parents came to visit, and it turned out well - tasty and pretty. The recipe is from the Bouchon cookbook, which I can't post, but it's easy enough to make something very similar. Martha Stewart lists this pate sucree recipe that is practically identical to the one I used. For a thick pastry cream, try this recipe, which uses cornstarch instead of flour (you may want to increase the cornstarch - if it is too thick after cooking, you can always loosen it slightly by adding a little milk).

After your tart crust has cooled, brush the bottom with melted chocolate before topping with pastry cream and fruit. This was how they made all the tartlets at my old bakery, which I thought was pretty common to prevent sogginess, but everyone I served it to commented how much they liked the chocolate, so it's worth mentioning I suppose.

Off to my volunteer shift - see you later!

3 comments:

Emily said...

This looked fantastic, and so I'm trying it. My pastry dough, though, was very sticky and didn't really look like a dough - I thought it looked as though it needs more flour. I haven't baked yet. Should I go with it or add the flour? Thanks!

Jenny said...

Hi Emily...my pastry dough was also quite sticky, so I kept chilling the dough to keep it firm and easy to work with. I think if you add too much flour, the crust may not turn out as crisp or light - you could try it though and just see what happens. Let me know!

Emily said...

Hi, Jenny,

Darn, I must have done something wrong - my crust was pretty well awful. I don't think even the birds liked it! I think that chilling wasn't enough, it just didn't have enough dry to go with the wet. Maybe my eggs were bigger than normal. Or my flour was extra fluffy and I didn't have enough in the measuring cup. Oh, well, I'll have to try again. Thanks for your blog - I really enjoy it!