Fruit Tart

This fruit tart was a bake I did as a birthday cake for a friend in church with the help of other cell group members (K and AB) too. The birthday girl loves fruits and was given the title of "fruitarian". 

Happy Birthday, PY!! 

The beautiful, fresh fruits were the stars of the tart. It was really a pleasure to assemble the tart that morning. With the sun streaming in from the kitchen window and the beautiful combination of the colors from the fruits, what a great start for the day!

The beautiful things that our creator God have bless us with.

Now back to baking…

Only the tart base require baking. Most of the work is in washing, peeling and arranging the fruits.

I have also used this sweet shortcrust pastry recipe to make this apple crumble.

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

(makes a 19 cm diameter open tart)

Ingredients:

270g unbleached organic all purpose flour (usual all purpose flour will work too)

3 Tbsp icing sugar

135g unsalted butter, cold and cubed

2 – 3 Tbsp cold water

1/8 tsp salt

Steps to bake:

• Place flour, sugar and butter into a mixing bowl, using a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour and sugar mixture until mixture resembles fine breadcrumb. (Need to work fast in our humid weather here in Singapore)
• Add ice water 1 Tbsp at a time until the mixture when pressed in your hand is able to just bind.
• Press the mixture together to form a dough and wrap in cling wrap. Chill for 30 min.
• Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.
• Roll out the dough a little bigger than tart pan and place the dough into the tart pan. Using your finger to press the dough into the flute of the pan. Using a fork, dork the base of the tart.
• Line the inside of the tart with a baking paper and pour some beans on paper to weigh down the pastry.
• Bake for 10 min with the weights
• Remove the beans and baking paper and bake the tart for another 15 min. Until the surface of the tart is slightly golden brown.

The tart is baked to slightly golden brown.

Passion Fruit Curd Pastry Cream

(Adapted from Flour by Joanne Chang)

Ingredients:
300g milk

100g sugar

30g cake flour (corn flour will work too)

¼ tsp salt

4 egg yolks

Seeds scrapped from 1 pod of vanilla/ 1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp of passion fruit curd (replace the freshly squeezed lemon juice with freshly squeezed passion fruit juice)

60g whipping cream

Directions:

• You can watch this video on how to make a fuss free pastry cream.
• In a medium saucepan, heat milk over medium-high heat until bubbles just start to form around the edges but milk is not yet boiling. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together sugar, flour, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg yolks until well combined; slowly whisk in flour mixture until thick and pasty.

• Remove milk from heat and slowly add to egg mixture, whisking constantly. Transfer egg mixture to saucepan and place over medium heat, whisking constantly until mixture thickens and comes to a boil, about 3 minutes. Boil, whisking, for 10 seconds, and immediately remove from heat.

• Pour mixture through a fine mesh sieve set over a small heatproof bowl; stir in vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing down on the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled, at least 4 hours and up to 3 days.

• After the mixture cooled, stir in 1 tablespoon of the passion fruit curd.

• Whip the whipping cream to soft peaks and fold it into the pastry cream passion fruit mixture. Keep the mixture covered and chilled until ready to assemble the tart.

Assembling the tart:
Fruits used

Raspberry, 1 punnet

Blueberry, 1 punnet

Strawberry (Korean), 1 ½ punnet

Green kiwi, 2 count

Mango, ¾ of the fruit
1 Tbsp of apricot jam + ½ Tbsp of water to glaze the fruits.

Directions:

• Rinsed all the above fruits and pat them dry. Be very gentle with the raspberry and strawberry.
• Peel and cut the kiwi and mango into cubes.
• Heat up the apricot jam with 1/2 tablespoon of water in a pan until the mixture loosen and is in a liquid state. Take the pan off the heat once. But if the jam setup again, heat up the mixture to loosen it.
• Fill the baked tart base with the pastry cream and place the fruit on top the pastry cream.

Tart base filled with passion fruit pastry cream

• Using a pastry brush, lightly brush a thin coat of apricot jam on the fruit. This step not only makes the fruit more appetizing, it also helps to fruit to stay moist.
• You can serve immediately or keep chilled until ready to serve. It is best to serve the tart on the same day you assemble it. 

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