CLASSIC FRUIT TART

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A light, fruity dessert seems rather enticing, when temperatures reach almost 90 degrees.

The blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in our garden are still green - (and the poor little strawberries get "slugged" before they are ripe), but the supermarket has now berries in good quality - not that watery stuff from California.

Therefore, Hanaâ's Avid Bakers' Challenge for July couldn't have come at a better time - the Classic Fruit Tart from "The Weekend Baker".

Not ripe yet - blueberries in our garden

Abigail Dodge wrote this book for people who don't like spending hours in the kitchen, when smart do-ahead steps are possible, and the refrigerator is your friend.

Usually I follow Abby's make-ahead suggestions, but my oven was still hot from my Saturday bread baking, and I had invited a neighbor for tea.

And, really, what could be nicer than a toasty kitchen, heated from baking pitas at 550º F - when outside temperatures almost reach the 90 degree mark? (My husband only rolled his eyes...)

I made the dough, substituting a quarter of the all-purpose flour with spelt. Being a bit in a hurry, I chilled my finished dough disk only for 30 minutes, the minimum given time.

After preparing the pastry cream I rolled out the dough on a silicone mat. Soon I realized the impossibility of achieving the desired 14"-round, the dough started tearing, and there was no way to roll it around the pin without total disintegration.

Cooling the dough was not an option - my nice, practical King Arthur silicone mat was too large for the fridge. Its size made it also too difficult to flip it over the tart pan. Sweating and desperate, I searched my kitchen for anything that could help me get the dough in the right place.

Fortunately I found a metal cake platter that I could press on the dough, then flipping it over the tart pan. But not without mishap, the sharp fluted edge of the pan cut right through the dough, and the whole pain of rolling out the round to that size had been in vain - "for the cat", as the Germans say.

Skippy couldn't care less!

 Using the cut off dough pieces I pinched together a half-ways even rim, and put the tart in the oven. When I took it out, I saw with great displeasure that, in spite of all my gentle handling, the dough had opened up some ugly cracks in the bottom.

But pastry cream covers all baking sins with a layer of pure innocence, and fresh blackberries and raspberries gave the tart a pretty, cheerful look.

And the reward for all that effort? The tart was absolutely delicious, and everybody had a second helping!

Afterwards I looked through basic tart recipes (from William-Sonoma, "Fine Cooking" and "Cook's Illustrated") to see whether there were some helpful hints. Obviously a cooling time of just 30 minutes for the dough was not enough, it should have been 1 hour instead.

Rolling out the dough to a 14"-round for a 9"-inch pan seems rather unnecessary, 2 inches larger than the pan should have done it.

And in William-Sonoma's "Pie & Tart" I even found my own scribbled note: "Roll out the dough on a thin plastic cutting board, and flip it over the pan".  That's exactly what I will do the next time. Or just press into the pan with my fingers!

RHUBARB VANILLA CREAM TART

Rhubarb Vanilla Cream Tart - a marriage of tart and sweet, with Bourbon vanilla

I always liked rhubarb. It grew abundantly in our garden, and my sister, my two cousins, and I were admonished not to eat it raw - especially not the leaves - in the same way we were told not to bite into the pods of golden chain, monkshood, lily-of-the-valley or foxglove. OR ELSE!

My mother usually cooked rhubarb for compote, to eat with vanilla pudding or quark, but sometimes we bought rhubarb streusel cake, or rhubarb meringue torte from the Konditorei.

The rhubarb plants in our garden in Bar Harbor were hardly visible when we moved into our house. Suffering from years of living in the shadows, malnourishment and crowded out by weeds, they had shrunk to puny proportions, with spindly stems too anorectic to harvest.

My in-laws planted rhubarb in what was, in those days, a sunny patch along the fence, but long since overshadowed by maples and cedars. I didn't even think they were worth the effort of digging and planting them somewhere else, but, at least, I freed them from their suffocating neighbors, and graciously fed them some compost.

In the meantime, some trees have come down, and more light is now reaching these poor plants. They seem to like my grudging care, and look much more vigorous this year (even growing gamely back after some people - I will not name names - dumped a garbage can right on their patch).

Recovering rhubarbs

Since they are still on the way to recovery, I bought the fat, healthy rhubarb stems for this wonderful cake at Hannaford's.

RHUBARB VANILLA CREAM TART

Crust
110 g/3.9 oz all-purpose flour
30 g/1 oz whole wheat pastry flour (or more all-purpose flour)
80 g/2.8 oz cornstarch
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp baking powder
80 g/2.8 oz powdered sugar, sifted
1 pinch salt
100 g/7 tbsp butter, softened

Rhubarb Compote
400 g/14.1 oz rhubarb, peeled and cut in 2 cm chunks
50 g/1.8 oz sugar
60 ml/ 1/4 cup orange juice (or wine)
4 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cold water (or orange liqueur)

Vanilla cream
500 ml/16.9 oz heavy cream
80 g/2.8 oz sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
1 envelope unflavored gelatin powder (or 4 white gelatin leaves)
100 g/3.5 oz mascarpone cheese


1. For the crust: using a wooden spoon, mash butter in a bowl, and mix with powdered sugar. Add egg, and mix until completely blended.

2. In second bowl, sift together flour, starch, baking powder and salt. Add to bowl with wet ingredients. Work dough into ball, and then press into a flat disk on plastic wrap. Wrap and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.

3.  For the rhubarb compote: in sauce pan over medium heat, let sugar caramelize until light brown. Add orange juice (or wine), then rhubarb, and cook for 5 minutes, or until rhubarb is soft and sugar dissolved. In small bowl, dissolve starch in 1 tbsp. cold water (or liqueur). Stir into rhubarb, and let cool.

4. Cut parchment paper to a round, using a 10-inch/26 cm tart form as template (use later with pie weights.)

5. On lightly floured surface, roll out dough to a 11-inch/28 cm round. Place into tart form, pushing dough to sides. Trim excess with knife. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 400ºF/200ºC. Adjust rack to second lowest position.

7. Cover dough with paper round, then with pie weights (or dried beans.) Bake for 15 minutes, remove pie weights and paper. Continue baking for another 10 minutes. Let tart crust cool (in pan) on wire rack.

8. For the vanilla cream, scrape vanilla bean. Add empty pod and heavy cream to sauce pan and cook until cream is reduced by 1/5th to 14 oz/400 ml. Remove vanilla pod.

9. Mix powdered gelatin with sugar. Stir with vanilla seeds into hot cream, until dissolved (or soak gelatin leaves in cold water for 10 minutes, squeeze, and stir into hot cream until dissolved.)

10. Let cool for 5 minutes, then stir in mascarpone. Leave to cool, until cream begins to set.

11. Spoon rhubarb compote evenly over baked crust. Chill for 30 minutes. Spread vanilla cream evenly over rhubarb. Refrigerate tart for several hours, until cream has set.

I adapted this recipe from essen-und-trinken.de: "Rhabarber-Vanillecreme-Tarte".