Easy Fruit Tarts
Ingredients
BAKED TART SHELL
9-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom (or four tartlet pans, also with removable bottoms)
1 and 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold, unsalted butter, cut into inch cubes
1 large egg yolk
1 and tablespoons ice water, plus more if necessary
MASCARPONE CREAM
8 oz. mascarpone (Italian cream cheese, available in most grocery stores)
1/3 cup very cold heavy cream
cup sugar
GLAZE
2 tablespoons sweet orange marmalade (though I used apricot jam, since it was what I had)
2 tablespoons dark berry liqueur, such as blueberry, blackberry or creme de cassis (though I used water, since it was what I had)
BERRIES
3-4 cups of washed, dried berries
Directions
STEP ONE: Make the tart shell. Pulse flour, sugar and salt in a food processor (or whisk together in a bowl). Pulse in butter (or blend in with your fingertips) until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-sized) lumps of butter. Beat together egg yolk and water and pulse (or stir) until incorporated.
The goal is to get the dough to stay together with as little liquid and as little pulsing as possible, but I always add more and beat more than recommended. The recipe says that if the dough isn't holding together, add tablespoon of water at a time until it does, but unless you're having a Gourmet editor over for dinner, I say you can go crazy and add 1-2 tablespoons and then reassess. You don't want a tough crust, but on the other hand it's a drag to work with dough that's falling apart.
Once it's holding together, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and quickly knead or smear it with the palm of your hand to help distribute the fat. Gather dough into a ball, flatten it into a disc, then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour, or until firm.
Roll the dough out into a 13-inch round (or four smaller ones if you're making tartlets). Do this any way that works: between sheets of waxed paper, as Gourmet suggests, or else just work fast and use a bit of flour, as I did. Gently press dough into tart pan (or tartlet pans), then roll the rolling pin over the top of the pan to trim the edges of dough flush with the rim. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes (unless you don't have time, which I didn't). Preheat oven to 375 degrees. (I did this at the start because I knew I was short on time.)
Lightly prick shell in several places with a fork. Line the shell with foil and fill with pie weights, raw rice or dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes. Carefully remove foil and weights and bake shell until golden, about 10 minutes more. Cool completely on a rack.
STEP TWO - Make cream filling: Beat together mascarpone, cream and sugar with an electric mixer at high speed until mixture holds stiff peaks, about one minute. Spoon filling into baked crust.
STEP THREE - Make glaze: Combine jam and liqueur in a small saucepan; then simmer and stir for about two minutes.
STEP FOUR - Assemble the tart: Either gently toss the glaze with the berries and then mound them on the mascarpone cream as the recipe suggests, or else place the berries decoratively on the cream and, using a pastry brush, gently coat the berries with the glaze, as I did.
Notes
Instead of a labor-intensive creme patissiere, this recipe uses a rich, delicious and absurdly easy mascarpone cream. The only time-consuming part of this recipe is making a crust from scratch; it's usually worth it to me, but if you want to make this even easier, buy a pre-made pie crust.
The tart shell can be made up to one day ahead and kept, loosely covered, at room temperature.
I adapted this recipe from the Berry Tart with Mascarpone Cream recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook (Houghton Mifflin; 2004). All changes were made for expedience, and solely because this mother of two barely has time to make scrambled eggs, much less homemade tarts. But this one, I can do. So can you.
The recipe says the tarts can be assembled and refrigerated up to two hours in advance. I made mine 24 hours in advance (and kept them in the fridge), since I need to bake when the opportunity arises. No one complained.