Fruit Tart Crème Pâtissière

Having a wining Tart Crust recipe really makes my dessert life a lot easier. I can make a big batch of dough, many beautiful little tart bases and fill them in with different fillings for a beautiful, colorful dessert plate.

Variations

The variations are endless. You can use mini bite-sized tart bases like above and decorate with fruit around them or you can use medium ones with all sorts of colorful and delicious variations. Some take more work that others, and during the next few weeks I am going to give you a few recipes for knock-out dessert tarts

What tart size are you going to use?

You can make a big 28cm (11 inch) tart, 2x 19.5 cm (8 inch) or about 12x 6.5cm (2.55 inch), or even about 40 of the mini ones in the first picture, but I wouldn’t recommend them for this specific recipe. In some of these pictures, I was practicing with my new Valrhona Perforated Tart Rings, I really recommend getting these rings if you want beautiful flat round edges that are perfectly baked all around. I’ve been wanting them for a while but they were hard to find, until my friends at Duikelman, my absolutely favorite kitchen supply store in Amsterdam brought them in. I’m now saving up to order some more sizes and shapes 🙂

The first two on the blog are also my favorite tarts, my famous Lemon Meringue Pie and my Pear and Almond Cream Tart – These two are my top requested tarts, together with an incredible Honey Caramel Nut Mix and a Hazelnut Chocolate Praline which I will be adding to the blog soon!

But today I am going to share one that looks the most beatiful. One that always get’s a “wow” out of others and brings the color and vibrancy to the dessert plate… *drum-rolls* It’s the Fruit Tart Crème Pâtissière!

The most important ingredient for this tart is fresh fruit, I like to have a combinations of colors and choose fruit that will not “bleed” out until served. In this case I went for kiwi, small strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, black berries and beautiful cherries.

What’s great about these, is that I make it in phases so all the work doesn’t just ambush me at the day of preparing, I can make the tart shell before, the Crème Pâtissière in advance and build it all up together the same day.

Fight the mushiness!

The one thing I always didn’t like about these when bought in bakeries is that the crust had been mushy and soft, lost the crunch and always a bit disappointing. If you keep on reading, you’ll see my secret to preventing that from happening

Where to start

You can use my lovely Easy Home made Pie & Tart Crust recipe here to kick it off, I normally make these a day in advance

Here’s one of the best tips I can give you, my secret to keeping the crust flaky, crunchy and fresh (even if not served at the same moment). Brush it with melted chocolate! Yes, just melt some dark chocolate in microwave pulses and brush the inside. The chocolate will harden and will form a protective shell, allowing the tart shell to remain crunchy and not become soggy when added with there creme and fruit.

Crème Pâtissière

Start by cooking milk and half a vanilla bean, cut length wise and seeds scraped into the milk too

I personally love using Nielsen Massey Vanilla Beans but if you don’t have a vanilla bean you can also use Nielsen Massey’s Vanilla Paste  – I love this vanilla from Madagascar, vanilla is such an important ingredient, especially with crème pâtissière and it’s the only one I use.

Bring the milk and vanilla to a boil and remove from heat. Let sit for 15 minutes to allow flavors to meld together.

Meanwhile, mix sugar and egg yolks together

Mix in Cornstarch

Mix well until no lumps and thick consistancy

Next, strain the milk from the vanilla beans into a medium sauce pan, make sure the squish all those seeds through the sieve

Add a bit of the egg mixture in the same sauce pan and mix well, then all the rest and set on medium-low heat

Stir contentiously for about 5-8 minutes, until the texture is very thick

Remove from heat, add in butter and keep mixing until completely dissolved

The end result should look like a thick yellow custard with an incredible vanilla fragrance

Transfer to a clean bowl and let cool for a few minutes

cover with seran wrap, assuring the plastic touches the entire surface of the cream to prevent a skin forming

Refrigerate until ready to use. Once ready, transfer to a piping bag and pipe in your pre-made tart shells

Then, organize your fruit on top any way you like. To give it such a nice gloss, I make a nappage from apricot glaze. Melt some apricot jam in a small sauce pan. Strain. Add a little bit of water and brush the fruit from the top. Keeps it glossy and fresh!