For Day 5 of Concord Grape Week, we are staying with dessert. This recipe is from a website called Verses from my Kitchen. The author writes infrequently, but the recipes are lovely and his wife’s photographs are simply world class. It’s a great site and I hope you can visit it.
On this site, you find this Fruit Tartlet with Shortcrust Shell. A classic tartlet shell is filled with a very rich custard of milk, sugar, egg yolks and heavy cream. Decadence. And it’s a platform. An array of mixed fruit, including Concord grapes, can tower over the filling, adding multiple flavors that blissfully merge with a Paris-class custard.
If you were walking a Paris street, you’d see this style of dessert in many shop windows. If you have a lazy afternoon in the kitchen, you can save the air fare but still indulge.
I know, the recipe below seems to reflect some combination of American, French and maybe British units. Setting my oven to 390° is something I might find a little awkward. But, I suspect 400° will do.
Fruit Tartlet with Shortcrust Shell
Yield: 6 tartlets
Ingredients:
For the pastry:
- 250 grams or 1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon. salt
- 150 grams cold unsalted butter, diced
- 6 tablespoons cold water
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
For the filling:
- 400 grams of mixed fruit (berries, plums, etc.)
- 250 milliliters whole milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 50 grams superfine sugar
- 20 grams cornstarch
- 3 large egg yolks
- 200 milliliters heavy cream
Preparation:
Process flour, butter and salt in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Whisk egg with chilled water in a bowl and then, with the food processor running, add to flour mixture. Process until it forms large clumps and stop.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and, if it seems to dry, add another tablespoon of water, but don’t make too wet. Knead into a smooth ball, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Roll out the chilled pastry onto a lightly floured surface and into a thick log. Cut into six pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and flatten with your hand. Using a rolling pin, roll out into a thin circle and softly press into a tartlet pan and trim excess. Repeat.
Put the tartlets on a baking pan and chill for another 30 minutes.
To make custard, add the milk and vanilla to a medium saucepan and add in a tablespoon of superfine sugar. Over high heat, bring to a boil. While the heat is coming to a boil, mix the rest of the sugar with the cornstarch in a mixing bowl and then beat in the yolks until smooth.
Preheat oven to 390 degrees. Line each tartlet with foil and fill with baking beans and bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and remove baking beans and foil and return to the oven for another 5 minutes, or until base lightly browns. Cool for 12 minutes and then remove from tartlet shell.
Beat the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Beat the cooled custard and then fold in the soft peaks. Chill.
Fill each tartlet shell with custard cream and top with fresh fruit.
Source: Verses from My Kitchen