Assemble the Tarts

Summertime baking has arrived!

We do a Saturday supper almost every week. There are five or six of us that take round-robin cooking turns, but a three course meal to feed a dozen or more is a lot. I try to help, and because I’m the baker of the group, it’s often with a loaf of bread, or a dessert. This week was a dessert. I wanted to give them something different, and I wanted to have some fun with it, being possessed of a little extra energy and a clean kitchen. Funny how having an empty nest changes things! I decided that I would go to the Farmer’s Market, and let that dictate what I was going to make.

Peaches, and plums. The peaches I wasn’t surprised by, as I knew the big produce grower should have them about now. The tiny booth with baskets of plums was a joyful surprise that I took full advantage of. As it’s early in the season, neither basket of fruit was fully ripe. I didn’t have enough of either to make a deep-dish pie (although that was never the plan with plums).

I started with a pâte brisée rather than a pie crust. While the pastry is similar, it’s richer, and tends to be more delicate.

pâte brisée

• 2 c flour

• 1 c (two sticks) cold butter

• 1/4 tsp salt

• scant 1/2 c ice water

Cut the butter into pieces, then cut into the flour and salt. Don’t work it fully into the flour - you should still be able to see small pieces of butter. Slowly pour the water into the dough, mixing, only until the dough has just started to come together. Form the dough into a ball, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill.

If you have a large food processor, this is much easier in that. Put the flour and salt into the bowl, cut the first stick of butter into roughly 1 tbsp pieces, dropping them into the flour apart from one another, then pulse once. Cut the second stick in the same way. Cover, and run the processor for about 5-6 seconds. Then drizzle the water through the feed hole while the processor is being pulsed before finally running it just until the dough ball forms. This will take a matter of seconds. Shut the processor off and remove the dough to wrap and chill as in the manual version.

While the dough is chilling, process your fruit. If you are using peaches, you want to blanch them in order to easily remove the skins. Bring water in a large pot to a boil. Carefully drop in the whole peaches, allow to boil for about a minute, then turn off the heat and drain the peaches. Allow to cool before peeling. In theory, the skins will slip right off. In reality, you’ll still want a paring knife or peeler to assist in places. Cut peeled peaches in half and remove the stone.

Cut plums in half, twist, and then cut the half with the stone in half again (effectively quartering it) and twist. At this point the stone can easily be pulled or cut away. Cut the first half into half, so you wind up with plum quarters if you are working with smaller plums. Larger plums can be cut into slices.

Preheat oven to 400F

Assemble the Tarts

Prepare a floured board for rolling, and have your rolling pin handy.

Remove the dough ball from the refrigerator, unwrap, and cut into halves. Re-wrap the half you aren’t working with and return it to chill. Roll the other half out until it is about the right size to fit into the pan you are using - one of mine was a 9” deep dish, the other was a 12” shallow, but you can of course make the dough thicker for smaller tarts. Have your pan nearby and place it on the dough to visualize how it will fit if you need.

Place the rolled dough into the pan, pressing it into the edges, and chill while you prepare the second half of the dough. Keep dough chilled until time to fill it.

Peaches and Cream Tart

This will need a deep tart pan, or a deep-dish pie plate if you don’t have tart pans

Cream filling

• 4 oz cream cheese

• 1/2 c sugar

• 1 c whole-milk yogurt

• 1/2 c cream

• 2 eggs

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar, then beat in the eggs, yogurt, and cream until a smooth batter is formed. Pour the batter into the deep tart pan that has been lined with unbaked pâte brisée, and arrange the peaches gently on it (they will sink a little). If you like a sweeter dessert, you can sprinkle a little demerara sugar on the peaches before baking. I used about ten small peaches in this, but you may have the big commercial peaches, or more ripe than I had… just remember to leave a little space as the filling will rise a bit in baking!

With a cookie sheet to support the tart pan, move this to the oven and bake at 400F for about an hour, until the filling is firm and does not jiggle when the pan is gently moved.

Allow to cool before serving.

You’ll see that I left space for the rise, if you compare this to the photo of the baked result.

Plum Tart

So quick and simple, this is one dessert I make as often as I can

• 1/2 c finely shredded coconut (traditionally this is almond meal, but I was serving a group that included nut allergies, either will work)

• 1/2 c sugar

• Quartered plums

• Demerara sugar

Mix together your coconut (or almond) meal and sugar. Spread this out over the bottom of the unbaked tart shell you had been chilling. This is to absorb most if not all the juices as the plums bake.

Place the plum quarters or slices in the tart shell. I like to arrange them neatly, but it really doesn’t matter if you don’t feel up to it.

Sprinkle the coarse sugar over the plums evenly.

Bake at 400F for about an hour, until the fruit is soft.

Serve ever-so-slightly warm. Serve with a little vanilla ice cream if you like - depending on the plums, this can be very tart, indeed!

I didn’t tidy up the edges of the dough, just folded them over on top a bit.

These are perfect for summer! Juicy, fresh, and not too sweet. I really need to make more tarts. You can fill them with almost anything - berries, ground cherries, and even savory onion tarts are a thing. The pâte brisée is close to pie crust, but it is more flaky and decadent with butter. I don’t use it all the time as it is more delicate and prone to break on serving. Worth it, though, even if the slices are not picture-perfect, as the flavor is wonderful.

The peaches-and-cream was a whim, born out of too few peaches, and ingredients handy that needed to be used up. It came out nicely, with the tartness of a cheesecake filling, but more a smooth custard texture. I may have to try something with ricotta sometime as well.