My 29th birthday was memorably depressing. I was soothing a boyfriend break-up, and my office “forgot” me. All day I waited for a cake that never came. Living in California with no family around left me at home by myself on a rainy night eating a Lean Cuisine. There was so much wrong with this picture. Although I had much to celebrate and was really doing quite well in life (as life goes), I still fell into the birthday pit.

Spinach Tiger is called “Tiger” for a reason and I vowed to never let this happen again. When I turned 30, I threw my own party, made my own food, ordered my own cake, and never again returned to the birthday pit.

It didn’t end there. I have taken stock in all birthdays. If you are my friend, I will bake you a birthday cake, throw you a party, and cook you a dinner. It’s what I do because I believe a life is worth celebrating and everyone has value.

I will make you a fruit tart of your choice.

It’s fun. It involves favorite foods and favorite cocktails. And, it’s good medicine. All your troubles go away on your birthday.

A while back we celebrated a friend’s birthday with this delicious tart. I used fresh berries.

The Berry Tart Process

The pastry cream was made in an unusual way, and it got thick really fast. But, it was delicious and it holds all this fruit without the crust ever getting soggy. The pastry crust is like a shortbread, perfectly sweet and sandy. There is a temptation to bake it past 25 minutes. Don’t.

Ingredients matter. This tart is all about the fruit. Only use the best pick of the season. I used blueberries that were picked on Wednesday and they were super sweet on their own. The finishing touch comes from a Bonne Maman four-fruit preserve, but you could use any high quality jelly or jam to brush the fruit.

If you want to make a no pastry cream tart, try this strawberry tart.

If you want to make a Raspberry Tart, try this recipe.

If you want to make a blackberry tart, try this recipe.

If you want to make a gluten free mascarpone blueberry tart, try this recipe.

More Tarts/Pies from Spinach Tiger

1Gluten Free Lemon Tart

Fresh Strawberry Pie

Blackberry Tart with Pastry Cream and Lime Basil

Gluten Free Berry Cherry Tarts in Muffin Tins

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Very Berry Tart

Classic French Pastry Fruit Tart

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• One Tart Shell recipe below
• 2 pints blueberry
• 1 pint strawberries
• 1/4 cup jam or preserves I used four fruit berry preserve; you can use berry or apricot
• handful lime basil finely chopped
• Pastry cream recipe below
• Small handful of lime basil torn into pieces
• !Pastry Crust:
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 9 tablespoons unsalted cold butter cut into small pieces
• 1 large egg yolk
• covered. Once frozen wrap in foil.
• Pastry Cream Ingredients
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 7 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup corn starch
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 1/2 tablespoons butter

Instructions

• TART SHELL
• Butter a tart pan that has a removable bottom.
• Pulse flour, sugar, salt in food processor for a few seconds. Add butter. Mix for about 30 seconds to one minute (it will look like coarse oatmeal). Add egg yolk. Pulse for 20 seconds. Dump onto counter. Bring together, making sure all ingredients are incorporated. Press into tart pan. Freeze uncovered. Once frozen, wrap in foil.
• To Bake: Bake at 375. Butter shiny side of foil. Place that side onto pastry. Bake frozen for 25 minutes. No need for pie weights.

Pastry Cream Instructions

• Get out a small and a medium sized sauce pan.
• In small sauce pan, boil milk. Remove from heat.
• In large sauce pan, mix egg yolks, sugar and corn starch. Incorporate on low heat, adding in 1/4 cup of hot milk. Continue whisking (an electric beater with a whisk wand works like a charm), and gradually add in remaining milk, boiling mixture for one minute. Immediately remove from heat.. Add in vanilla. Allow to sit for five minutes.
• Add butter. Cool completely, before assembling.
• FRUIT
• Wash and rinse fruit well, removing all stems. Dry fruit.If blackberries are very tart, add 1 - 2 tablespoons of sugar and allow to sit for an hour at room temperature. Add raspberries at very end, as they are more delicate.
• ASSEMBLE
• Spread pastry cream onto tart crust.
• Top with berries of your choice. Heat preserves or jam with 1 tablespoon of water. Brush fruit with pastry brush. Refrigerate. You can make this one day ahead. I like to make the cream and the tart crust the day before and assemble a few hours before serving.
• Top with lime basil.




The post How to Make a French Berry Fruit Tart appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

There a million ways to make a fruit tart and I hope to experiment with them all. This is not just any tasteless tart you can find at the grocery store. It’s full of surprises such as lime basil and blackberry syrup.

I found lime basil at my local farmer’s market this spring and I was very impressed by how much lime fragrance this plant puts off. It’s not subtle. It’s bright citrusy zing hits your nose immediately. I used it to infuse flavor into some blackberry syrup that I drizzled over the tart and chopped up a handful to throw in the flour for the crust. You could also use lemon thyme.

Had I been thinking this through, I might have added some lime juice to the custard and some more lemon basil leaves into the butter and then re-chilled it. Layering flavors is the best way to boost a dessert that has several components.

Brush pastry with blackberry syrup. You can also use a raspberry jam or some other kind of flavorful jam before adding the pastry cream. Continue to brush berries with syrup (or jam) after the tart is assembled.

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Blackberry Tart with Lime Basil

A delicious summer tart combining summer fruits and summer fruits, blackberries and basil.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• One Tart Shell recipe below
• 1 pint blackberries 2 pints if not using raspberries
• 1 pint raspberries
• 1/4 cup jam or preserves I used four fruit berry preserve; you can use berry or apricot
• handful lime basil finely chopped
• Pastry cream recipe below
• Small handful of lime basil torn into pieces
• !Pastry Crust:
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 9 tablespoons unsalted cold butter cut into small pieces
• 1 large egg yolk
• covered. Once frozen wrap in foil.
• Pastry Cream Ingredients
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 7 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup corn starch
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 1/2 tablespoons butter

Instructions

• TART SHELL
• Butter a tart pan that has a removable bottom.
• Pulse flour, sugar, salt in food processor for a few seconds. Add butter. Mix for about 30 seconds to one minute (it will look like coarse oatmeal). Add egg yolk. Pulse for 20 seconds. Dump onto counter. Bring together, making sure all ingredients are incorporated. Press into tart pan. Freeze uncovered. Once frozen, wrap in foil.
• To Bake: Bake at 375. Butter shiny side of foil. Place that side onto pastry. Bake frozen for 25 minutes. No need for pie weights.

Pastry Cream Instructions

• Get out a small and a medium sized sauce pan.
• In small sauce pan, boil milk. Remove from heat.
• In large sauce pan, mix egg yolks, sugar and corn starch. Incorporate on low heat, adding in 1/4 cup of hot milk. Continue whisking (an electric beater with a whisk wand works like a charm), and gradually add in remaining milk, boiling mixture for one minute. Immediately remove from heat.. Add in vanilla. Allow to sit for five minutes.
• Add butter. Cool completely, before assembling.
• FRUIT
• Wash and rinse fruit well, removing all stems. Dry fruit.If blackberries are very tart, add 1 - 2 tablespoons of sugar and allow to sit for an hour at room temperature. Add raspberries at very end, as they are more delicate.
• ASSEMBLE
• Spread pastry cream onto tart crust.
• Top with berries of your choice. Heat preserves or jam with 1 tablespoon of water. Brush fruit with pastry brush. Refrigerate. You can make this one day ahead. I like to make the cream and the tart crust the day before and assemble a few hours before serving.
• Top with lime basil.

The post Blackberry Tart with Lime Basil appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

My love of food keeps me humble. It seems that every week I learn something new that is typically taught the first week of culinary school.For example tart crust is different than pie crust. And, if you want me to get fancy, I can. Pie crust is called pâte brisée. This is your typical pie crust that Retro Rose makes, and I recently featured here with stars and stripes peach pie.

Tart crust is called pâte sucrée. It is a short crust that holds the filling and is often sweeter. It stands on it’s own when you hold it, unlike pie crust. The tart can be removed from it’s baking container; you can’t do that with pie crust, pâte brisée.

Tart crust, which is often blind baked (but not always), is a more crumbly crust, which works well for a pastry cream and fruit. Usually, the main difference in ingredients is eggs. The eggs give the crust its “cookie” type texture. But, I’ve made shortbread crust for the Chez Panisse almond tart that had no eggs. Confused yet? This just might be why pie crust/tart crust, etc. is considered culinarily daunting.

There is another tart crust worth mentioning. Pâte sablée is yet another tart crust very similar to pâte sucrée, only much more of a shorter crust and very rich. It’s often made with ground almonds and a good amount of sugar, resulting in a cookie type crust.

A tart crust often has more sugar than a pie crust, but can be baked savory as in this french tomato tart.

A few things to ask yourself when deciding if you want pie crust (pate brisee) or tart crust (pate sucree) is what it is to be filled with and how it will be eaten.

If you can envision a firmer yet crumbly crust that serves almost as a plate for your ingredients, you are going in the tart direction, pâte sucrée or pâte sablée These are the type of crusts that you will find in a french bakery, holding a pastry cream with fresh fruit.

The Raspberry Tart
I almost made the raspberry tart featured on the June cover of La Cucina Italiana. It’s a beautiful picture, and I used their recipe for the tart crust. But there was no pastry cream and that wouldn’t do for me. If I’m going with a fruit tart, I have to have pastry cream, so I leaned on Emeril for the recipe.

If you want to do make the La Cucinaa Italiana version, make this pastry dough, and when baked and cooled, spoon in seedless raspberry jam, add fresh raspberries and top with demura sugar.

Since I originally posted, I’ve made this fruit tart. It was over the top good. Do everything the same as below, but use a pint of raspberries and a pint of blueberries.

More Raspberry Recipes

You can also bake raspberries into a pie. Get recipe here. 

Rasberry Buttermilk Pie

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French Raspberry Tart Recipe

Pastry custard, French pastry dough, come together with fresh raspberries for a beautiful dessert.

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

Tart Dough

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/4 tablespoon granulated sugar
• pinch salt
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into cubes
• 2 large egg yolks
• finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• tart dough pâte sucrée (recipe below)
• 1 1/2 pints raspberries
• pastry cream recipe below
• seedless raspberry jam or apricot jelly

Pastry Creme

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 half vanilla bean halved lengthwise
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 1/2 teaspoons all purpose flour
• 3 large egg yolks
• 4 teaspoons unsalted butter

Instructions

Assembly

• Tart dough, Pastry cream recipe instructions below.
• Spread a little jam on bottom. Top with pastry cream. Arrange raspberries into the cream.
• Heat remaining jam in pan until it’s in liquid form. Brush raspberries with jam, using pastry brush. Chill.
• These tarts remained intact, not soggy for 24 hours. You can fully assemble the morning of your dinner party.

Tart Dough

• You can put in food processor and bring together until dough is formed, or do this by hand.
• Whisk together flour, sugar, salt. Mix in lemon zest and using fingers evenly distribute. Add cold butter and make sure all butter is covered with flour. Mix with fingers until it looks like course meal. Put egg yolks and water in center of mixture and mix with hands to incorporate.
• Knead dough 5 to 6 times on floured surface. Form into disc. Cover with plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
• Roll out and cut into four 5 1/2” circles. I used a mason jar lid.
• Press into tart pans, fork indentations, and chill for 30 minutes.
• Line with parchment paper (with some overlap), and place beans or pie weights in each tart.
• Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Remove parchment and bake for another 5 minutes, until edges begin to brown. Cool completely.

Pastry Cream

• Get out a small and a medium sized sauce.
• In small sauce pan, boil milk. Remove from heat.
• In medium sized pan mix egg yolks, sugar and flour.

  Incorporate on low heat, adding in 1/4 cup of hot milk.

  Continue whisking (an electric beater with a whisk wand works like a charm), and gradually add in remaining milk, boiling mixture for one minute. Immediately remove from heat.
• Add in vanilla.
• Allow to sit for five minutes. Add butter. Cool completely, before assembling.

The post French Raspberry Tart Recipe appeared first on Spinach Tiger.