This week we decided to make something sweet. The original thought was to make something simple and delicious, as a chocolate chip cookie, but it was Corina’s week to chose something and this is one of her favorites. In the search for something good but easy to make, we came across this recipe in iheartnaptime.net for the Fresh Fruit Tart. Ingredients seemed accessible and nothing out of this world, plus it gave us all the choice to decorate with our favorite fruits.
Original recipe:
Ana
Andrea
Bere
Cori
Juli
Click on any of the pictures for more details
Have you done this recipe before? No
Tools for the recipe: Silicone baking pan, whisk, rolling pin
Ingredient substitute: I used gluten-free baking flour
Experience doing the recipe: My blender and food processor did not work so I resorted to go old fashion and make the crumbles with a fork. It was easier than I thought and allowed me to leave enough fluff so that flakes show up on my pastry. The measurements worked for me even though I had the gluten free flour. My challenge was with the filling. Although I measured everything accordingly my filling was runny, not watery but a bit away from the pudding-like. So, in the pan it looked great, when I filled the crust not so much. I ended up refrigerating for about 3.5 hours instead of 2. Regarding flavor the crust was too salty for me, very flaky but salty and even though the filling was not firm, the flavor was excellent. I chose blueberries and strawberries since my daughter does not like kiwi. One thing I noticed is that the cake leftovers felt completely apart by the following day. I am wondering if it is intended to be eaten at once. Nevertheless, I am in awe on how easy making this pastry was. I have always resorted to store bought products thinking this was too complicated for my skills.
Would you try the recipe again? I will definitively try it one more time. However, the next adventure will be making individual tartelettes and maybe cooking the filling for a bit longer. Pretty sure will not use any salt.
From the moment the recipe was sent I panicked because I have never done a tart/pie before….. just keep reading…
Have you done this before? I have never
Tools for the recipe: I used pie Pyrex, 2 bowls, measuring cups & spoons, rolling pin, knife, dough blender, 1 pan, 1 wooden spoon & a cupcake pan
Ingredient substitute: I substituted the flour for an all purpose gluten free kind as well as the sugar for coconut sugar ( that’s why the filling is brown) and whole milk for almond milk
Experience doing the recipe: I had to start with the mood setting music which was Disney classics starting with Moana because it speaks fruit tart to me. After that I started with the dough confidently putting everything into the mixer and letting it rest. Then I rolled it and cooked it for 20minutes and it seemed uncooked so i let it go another 10 minutes and then it seemed too hard. I took it out and tried it and “ew this tastes really bad”. I though, well maybe the filling cream will make it better so I did my filling cream and that one was delicious. At this point all I kept repeating was “this is a lot of work” I put them together added the fruit and put them in the fridge to set. After some time I took it out and it was time for the truth for my tester husband to try it. His expression was the same as mine when I tried the crust :( so I have to say this recipe for me was half a fail and half Yummy!
Would you try doing the recipe again? Yes, I did try to make the crust again because I was upset it didn’t come out right and that the filling would go to waste. This time I replaced the butter for coconut oil and it was definitely eatable at least that’s what the hubby said
the crust instead for flour. ( I had a gluten free cousin come over)
Have you done this recipe before? I’ve seen my mom do it, this is one of my favorite desserts she makes, but I had never done it myself, by myself
Tools for the recipe: I had all the tool the recipe asked for except for instead of a tart Pyrex, I had a pie Pyrex…but really what’s the difference???
Ingredient substitute: Followed the recipe as directed except Bere made the recipe before me and mentioned that the crust came out salty so I used salted butter and did not add salt to the crust, and I added an extra tablespoon of sugar. I did not have whole milk just fat free milk.
Experience doing the recipe: I was so excited to try this recipe, this was totally in my wheel house. One thing I would recommend everyone is to read the whole recipe before you start doing anything. I thought I was just going to do it all together and came to realize there is a lot of do and wait, then do again and then wait again, you can’t just work on everything at the same time and then put it together.
The crust was a little messy to make and they made it seem like it was simple. I was not able to stretch it out on the counter and then move it to the greased Pyrex. I had to move it in pieces and then patch it together, but hey! it worked and I figured it didn’t have to look perfect because I was going to be putting the custard on top.
The custard, what can I say about the custard….besides it was a roller coaster of emotions. It started with “let me read this”, to “okay I got this”, to “wait what”, to “lets just try it”, to “nothing is happening, is it because of the fat free milk instead of the whole milk?”, to “OMG what just happened”, to “oh no I think I messed this up”, to “no wait it might work”, to “heck yeah I got this!!”, to “wow that is so yummy!!”. All that happened in a 6 minute time frame. So needles to say it was an adventure.
The end result came out very good. I shared half the tart with a coworker which texted me in the middle of the night thanking me for the tart and that is was DELICIOUS. So I must have done something right!
Would you try the recipe again? Oh yeah!! I want to try to do the little tarts like Andrea did. I also think this might be my new party trick.
Have you done this recipe before? No
Tools for the recipe: bowls, whisk, small pot, glass container and a knife
Ingredient substitute: graham crackers and unsalted butter for the crust
Experience doing the recipe: From the beginning I knew I didn’t want to make the crust, I’ve never been a fan but I had make a no-bake crust with graham crackers and butter.
My expectations were low, I mean what could go wrong? Enough for me probably not to try this recipe for a while.
All was good in Juli’s kitchen and then I started making the custard just as indicated, seemed like it was too liquid but I still went ahead and added it to the crust I had and left it to rest overnight.
Next morning, I was afraid of opening the fridge because something told me it wasn’t right, and it happened: the custard never caught its consistency and the crust completely ruined.
So, with the custard still very much in a liquid state I transferred it to another bowl and drained the pieces of crust in it, put it back in a pan with a little cornstarch and with the fear of making sure it would get a thicker consistency, added a little too much and YUP it got thicker all right, but now it seemed like a THICK apple sauce, however, it tasted GOOD!
Pour it into mini crust I had made from leftover from the night before and let it rest.
Its more of a cheesecake gone wrong/too thick custard type of fruit tart, #uglydelicious style, but it tasted SO good!
Would you try the recipe again? I believe fruit tarts and me need to take a break from our relationship, we have good concepts of each other, terrible execution
