My Fabulous Fresh Fruit Tart
My Fabulous Fresh Fruit Tart
My husband asked me if I could make him a beautiful fresh fruit tart some time ago but I'm really not very good at true pastry shells so I decided to make a different style of crust as the base and give it a shot. It turns out the crust was a huge hit! And it's so much easier than traditional tart pastry!
It's a bit more like a cookie in flavor made of all purpose flour, confectioner's sugar, butter and a bit of lemon zest pressed into a tart pan with your fingers. I use a tart pan with a removable bottom placed on a half-sheet baking pan. It's ingenious! The delicate crust comes out beautifully formed every time.
This is how it looks after 15 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees. The little holes are where the larger pieces of butter melted into the crust leaving tiny craters that will fill in with the sweet creamy filling.
Next I top the crust with a sweet Neufchatel cheese filling. Of course you can use cream cheese too!
After filling your tart begin topping it off with beautiful fresh fruits!
You can use whatever you like but Superman loves berries especially blackberries so of course that's what I used for this tart. Keep piling it on as high as you like!
This is My Fabulous Fresh Fruit Tart. So easy! Go make one now.
You know you want to.
My Fabulous Fresh Fruit Tart
Ingredients
1 ½ cups unsifted all-purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
3/4 cup grated cold butter (or cut in with a pastry cutter)
1- 8 0z package Neufchatel cheese (or cream cheese)
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons half & half
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
Fresh fruit to toppings such as:
Strawberry halves
Blueberries whole
Blackberries whole
Kiwi half slices
Method
Cut butter into the measured flour and confectioners’ sugar until it resembles little boulders then press into a tart pan with your fingers and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Let cool completely.
Whip together the cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar, half & half, lemon juice & zest in a stand mixer until fluffy. Spread this evenly across the cooled tart crust by dropping the whole filling into the center of the crust and spreading outward being careful not to pull crust into the filling or to get too close to the delicate edge.
Top with fruit as desired.
Serve immediately or cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until time to serve. This can be made up to one day ahead.
