A Tale of Two Tarts…

 

 

I love, love, love Raspberry season! One of my favorite summer desserts is a simple raspberry tart.  You can be creative and make all kinds of fillings. Standard pastry cream, mascarpone cream,  50/50 mixture of pastry cream and lemon curd, or one of my favorites white chocolate pastry cream.

This time I decided to do something different and pair raspberries with a passion fruit cream. I had some passion fruit puree in the freezer and have been holding onto it waiting for a good reason to use some of it. Initially I made the passion fruit cream based off of a recipe I found online from pastry chef  Eddy Van Damme. Check out his website; he has some amazing recipes:  www.chefeddy.com The recipe was straight forward and pretty simple; but I thought the flavor was a little too strong for my taste, so I ended up making a standard pastry cream with vanilla bean and mixed the two together almost 50/50 and it was amazing! paired with the raspberries I thought it was a nice combination. The only problem was I now had a lot of pastry cream so I went ahead and  made two tarts. Yes, several egg yolks later… I had beau coup pastry cream. But this is what makes baking fun…a chance to try new recipes and experiment.  For the less adventurous I will include the standard pastry cream recipe below which is wonderful on its own.  The shortbread tart crust is really easy as well and you don’t have to roll it out, you simply press it into the tart pan. It’s pretty much a cookie type crust.

 

4/21/19 Update- I’ve changed my recipe below for the passion fruit pastry cream now using 1/2 cup of purée and therefore changed the heavy cream to 1 1/4 cups. I’m loving the new change. I used almost all the cream in the tart base- you’ll still have a little bit leftover.

Raspberry Tart with Passion Fruit Cream

Shortbread tart Crust: (yield one 9 inch tart)

1  1/2 sticks unsalted butter

1/3 C  confectioners sugar

1  1/2 C all purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

(soft butter for brushing tart pan)

In the bowl of a stand mixer on medium speed; cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add in the vanilla bean paste and combine briefly until smooth. In a small bowl whisk the flour and salt to combine. Add the flour mixture on medium low speed until the mixture is almost combined; there will be some bits at the bottom of the bowl. Stop the mixer and with your hands lightly  mix the dough together to incorporate any little bits until it is combined.

Prepare the tart pan by brushing with soft butter and flouring the pan; tap out any loose flour. This step is key if you want to actually remove the tart crust from the bottom part of the pan; such as if you are giving it for a gift or putting it in a box to take to a party. The flour will ensure you can slip a thin spatula in between the crust and the bottom portion of the removable tart pan. Hey, if you are having your own party and you don’t plan to transport that sucker,  then skip this step. There is enough butter in the tart crust that you will still be able to remove the ring without buttering or flouring the pan.

Press the dough into the tart pan until it looks fairly even. Chill the crust for at least 30 minutes before you bake it. I chill mine an hour so it helps prevent the crust from shrinking when baked. Once the crust has chilled, dock the bottom of the crust all over with the tines of a fork; being careful not to go all the way through. This will prevent the crust from puffing when baked. Set the tart pan on a cookie sheet and Bake at 350 º  for about 15-20 minutes or until the crust looks pale with just a little bit of light gold color around the edges. Remove the crust from the oven and brush the tart shell lightly with a beaten egg white. This will prevent the crust from getting soggy. Let the tart crust cool completely on a wire rack.

Pastry Cream: (yield for one 9-10 inch tart)

1  1/4 C whole milk

1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

3 egg yolks

1/4 C sugar

2 Tbsp.  flour

2 Tbsp. corn starch

1 Tbsp. soft butter

In a medium bowl place the egg yolks and whisk in the sugar until smooth. In a small bowl combine the flour and corn starch; stir to combine. Add this to your egg yolk/sugar mixture and whisk vigorously until the mixture is smooth. In a sauce pan bring together the milk and vanilla bean paste to a boil. Kill the heat.  Remove the milk from the heat and slowly temper in about half of the milk a little at a time to your egg yolk mixture; whisking continuously to ensure the yolks don’t burn. Return the mixture to the rest of the milk in the pan, and on low-medium heat,  whisk the mixture vigorously until the cream thickens; keep whisking and cook it for about one minute. Kill the heat and transfer it to a bowl. Whisk in the soft butter.  If you think you may have any lumps you can pass it through a sieve. Skipping this step would make many a pastry chef cringe, but I’m a whisking maniac and am pretty fast so I skip this step. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and chill until cold.

Variation: White Chocolate Pastry Cream; add 4 oz. melted (and cooled) white chocolate after transferring to bowl; whisk to combine.

Passion Fruit Cream (yield enough for  two 9 inch tarts)

recipe from Chef Eddy Van Damme [half the recipe and mix with standard pastry cream for a 50/50 mix if you want to do like I did].

1 1/4 Cup Heavy cream

1/2 C passion fruit puree (I like Goya frozen brand) that I thaw out

1/4 C + 1 Tbsp. extra fine sugar

5 egg yolks

1/4 C extra fine sugar

4 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. corn starch

1/2 C milk, (brought to a boil)

1) In a saucepan bring the first 3 ingredients to a boil: heavy cream, passion fruit and sugar to a boil.

2) In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Add the 1/4 C sugar and whisk rapidly until smooth, add the  cornstarch and whisk smooth. Whisk in  the boiling milk.

3) Pour the egg yolk mixture into the boiling cream mixture and whisk rapidly to a boil Boil for 1 minute and remove from the heat. Cover the surface of the pastry cream with plastic wrap directly and chill until cold.

Fresh Raspberries for Tart: washed & dried

Raspberry Glaze:

1/4 C seedless raspberry jam

2-3 tsp. water

Heat the jam and water over low heat until mixture is thin.

Tart assembly:

Fill the tart shell with your pastry cream of choice. Smooth the filling with an off set spatula. Place the raspberries on the cream, covering the entire surface of the tart. Brush the warm glaze over the raspberries and chill the tart until ready to serve. Serve cold.

Happy Baking!

Suzie