ABC - Classic Fruit Tart

For this month's ABC, we're baking the Classic Fruit Tart from The Weekend Baker by Abby Dodge. I found some really good raspberries at the store so that's what I used. Although fruit tarts always look so pretty and appetizing, they always seemed so fussy. I learned with this recipe that that's not the case at all. There might be a few components to it but Abby breaks them down into manageable steps that you can do over the course of 2 or more days. I had some leftover ganache to decorate the tart. I mean, who doesn't love raspberries and chocolate? :o)

Raspberry Tart with Pastry Cream and Chocolate Ganache

A slice of yummy fruity goodness! :o)

If you would like to join the ABC baking club, please email me at HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com. Please find more details about our baking club on the ABC blog.

Day 1 - make the tart crust.
The crust was a bit of a pain. Once I rolled it out and lifted it into the tart pan, the edges of my tart pan cut right through the dough. Now I had some dough in the pan and some on the counter. I picked it up and just pressed it into the pan. For next time, I think I will just press the dough into the tart pan without rolling it out.

Day 2 - make the pastry cream, arrange fruit and decorate the tart.
The pastry cream recipe was a bit different from I'm used to. Previous recipes I've made used corn starch as the thickener whereas this recipe uses flour. When I mixed the eggs, sugar, salt, and flour, the mixture clumped together pretty badly. There's no way I'm adding hot milk to that. So instead, I took some of the cold milk in the recipe and mixed that in there until smooth, and then heated the rest of the milk until hot. That worked really and I had no lumps. I always like to strain my custard (whether the recipe says so or not) because no matter how careful you are, there will always be tiny bits of cooked egg in your custard which will take away that smooth and silky mouth feel.

Yummy pastry cream!

Nobody likes a soggy crust so I spread the bottom of the crust with homemade raspberry preserves.

I love whipped cream so I decided to double the amount of cream. I added a little bit sugar to it before whipping it, as well as some kosher gelatin for extra stabilization. I bloomed 1 tsp of kosher gelatin and 4 tsp of cold water. After 5 min, I stuck it in the microwave to dissolve (about 7-9 seconds). Cool slightly and then add to the whipped cream.

It's time to arrange the fruit (after washing and carefully drying the berries). They looked so good that I ate several berries as a snack :o)

 

Doesn't that look appetizing? Bon appetit!

All of my guests (2 adults and 2 kids) loved this tart. I asked for ratings and got the following ratings:
- W (adult): 9.5 out of 10. Loved it!
- A (adult): pass - he's a binary kinda guy and only likes to give pass/fail grades :o)
- N (8 yrs): 9 out of 10. The ganache decoration was too dark and therefore not sweet enough for him.
- Y (6 yrs): "yummy in my tummy". Also didn't like the dark chocolate ganache too much.

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby also enjoyed this tart. He's normally not a big custard fan but thought this was very good. He gave it a 9 out of 10 rating citing that the berries could have been sweeter. Maybe it's an expectation thing. I don't expect raspberries to be super sweet, but rather have the right sweet-tartness balance, and they hit that mark for me. Apparently, a dusting of powdered sugar didn't increase the sweetness by too much, so maybe next time I'll brush them with an apricot glaze, like Janis did.
• I loved the buttery and flaky crust (even though the dough was a pain to work with). The pastry cream was smooth, creamy and rich, and the stabilized whipped cream gave it a nice hold during cutting without being overly stiff. I liked the dark chocolate ganache at the end of the slice. It was rich and super chocolaty which was a nice contrast against the sweet pastry cream and crust.
• The (leftover) ganache I used is called Midnight Ganache from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. It's the darkest and most luscious ganache you'll ever taste. It's a bit of work but it's so worth it. You start out with a caramel to which you add cream and chopped chocolate. Then you whisk in a mixture of cocoa powder bloomed (dissolved) in hot water. After it sets it has a wonderful piping consistency. You can also use it as a spread (the way you would Nutella).
• Check out what the other ABC bakers said about this month's Classic Fruit Tart.