bake this: mixed berry tart

So I’ve gone a bit mad today, delirious over the fact that temperatures crept past fifty degrees. The cashmere scarf and wool hat? Shoved deep into my bag. And daylight at 5:30pm? Be still, my rapidly beating heart. It’s all I can do to not throw open the windows, heat up the oven, and mix myself some tarts and blisteringly beautiful pie. Luscious deep blue and red berries nestled on a cloud of white cream, with only the slight crunch of the crust to make the complexity of flavors and textures complete. I make a mean berry pie, but I feel the tart deserves its due. So I’m pulling out all the stops by fixing a mixed berry tart recipe this weekend, but I wanted to give you the recipe NOW.

Ingredients
Tart Shell
pie weights or raw rice/dried beans for weighting shell
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons cold, cut unsalted butter
1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (please! use a fresh lemon)
2 1/2 tablespoons chilled water

Filling: uncoooked pastry cream
1 cup mascarpone cheese (about 8 ounces)
1/3 cup well-chilled heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
3 cups assorted berries (I use blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries)
2 tablespoons apricot marmalade
2 tablespoons dark berry liqueur such as blueberry, blackberry, or cassis (if you don’t have liquor in your house, you can disregard this. you can either add the heated marmalade to the fruit, or feel free to go without and simply add the fruit sans topping)

1 9-inch tart pan

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Blend together flour and butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender until most of mixture resembles coarse meal with small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Beat together yolk, vanilla, lemon juice, and water with a fork and stir into flour with fork until combined well. Gently knead with floured hands in bowl until a dough forms. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and gently knead 4 or 5 times. Form dough into a ball, then flatten into a disk and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin roll out dough into an 11-inch round (about 1/8 inch thick) and fit into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable fluted rim. Roll rolling pin over top of shell to trim dough flush with rim and with a fork prick bottom of shell all over. Chill shell 30 minutes, or until firm. Line shell with foil and fill with pie weights or raw rice. Bake shell in middle of oven 20 minutes and carefully remove foil and weights or rice. Bake shell until golden, about 10 minutes more, and cool completely in pan on a rack. Shell may be made 1 day ahead and kept in pan, loosely covered, at room temperature.

Now on to the filling! With an electronic mixer on high, beat together mascarpone, cream, and sugar until mixture holds stiff peaks. Spoon mixture into shell, spreading evenly.

In a small saucepan simmer marmalade and liqueur, stirring, until reduced to about 3 tablespoons and pour over berries. With a rubber spatula gently stir berries to coat evenly. Mound berries decoratively on mascarpone cream. Tart may be assembled 2 hours ahead and chilled. Bring tart to room temperature and remove side of pan before serving.

Notes: I use local/organic ingredients when possible. I sometimes make this tart with apples, pears, plums - depending on the season. The point being that the shell and filling are the blueprints, you can add any sort of fruit that you enjoy. I also use cane sugar and unbleached flour.

(Image Credit)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 8:41 pm and is filed under foodie gal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.