Easy Elegant Fruit Tart

A beautiful berry tart, part tart, part cheesecake, easy to make but with an impressive and dramatic appearance. Unlike so many bakery tarts in the U.S., it tastes as good as it looks!

Fresh & Summery. Easy to Make, Looks Impressive, Tastes Great.

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COMPLIMENTS!

• "My family ate the first one that I made very quickly. I'm making the second one today!" ~ Anonymous

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Peering Through Bakery Windows With Longing

In France and Switzerland and Scandinavia, I’ve stood, slavering, outside patisserie windows, hoping the calories would stay behind the thick glass. They did but I could not. From those European creations of butter and cream and fruit and nuts, all so perfectly formed by expert hands, came irresistible calls for slow, savored consumption.

This elegant, summer-fresh tart will unleash your inner European pastry chef. It cries out for creative flair in the choice and arrangement of fruit, in the selection of liqueurs and jams.

This is a tart you may swooooon over. Is it a cheesecake? Sort of. Is it a tart? You bet. But is it delicious? Yes, ma’am! It’s an easy, elegant dessert, one which I’m willing to bet you’ll make again and again.

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EASY ELEGANT FRUIT TART

Hands-on time for filling & topping: 15 minutes over about 2 hours
Time-to-table: About 4 hours
Makes 1 nine-inch tart to serve 8

Plot your hands-on time mindfully, allowing for three separate chilling periods

• 1 unbaked or baked pie crust (see ALANNA's TIPS)

FILLING
• 8 ounces (225g) cream cheese, room temperature
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons liqueur (see TIPS)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

TOPPING (see TIPS)
• 1/2 pint blueberries
• 1/2 pint raspberries
• 1/2 pint blackberries
• 1/4 cup fruit jam or jelly
• 1 tablespoon liqueur

CRUST If unbaked, preheat oven to 450F/230C. Arrange dough in a nine-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, pinching along rim to form a decorative edge. Chill the tart for about 30 minutes, then gently cover the tart shell with foil and fill the shell with pie weights or dried beans or my personal favorite, sugar, since it can be reused. Bake the tart for about 15 minutes or until light brown and fully baked, carefully removing the foil once the tart is firm but not yet browning. Once fully baked, remove from the oven and let cool completely.

FILLING Meanwhile, combine the filling ingredients until smooth with an electric mixer. Spread evenly atop the cooled crust and refrigerate until firm, about 45 minutes.

TOPPING Arrange the berries in concentric circles, starting with larger blackberries along outer edge, then the raspberries, then filling the center with blueberries. Heat the jam and liqueur in a small pan until just warm and spoon evenly over fruit.

CHILL Refrigerate for up to two hours before serving.

ALANNA's TIPS For extra elegance, get out the rolling pin for your favorite pastry. I’ve been experimenting with ingredient combinations and am close to settling on 1:1 Crisco:butter or better yet lard:butter and a 1:3 ratio of cake flour:regular flour. Otherwise, Pillsbury refrigerated crusts are quite good, especially if rolled a bit thinner before arranging in the pan. Just cut away and discard what hangs over the sides. Or for still greater simplicity, use a prepared graham cracker or chocolate cookie crust – or make your own, either with My Favorite Graham Cracker Crust or the Homemade Chocolate Cookie Crust in Fresh Strawberry Pie. For liqueur, choose something fruity such as Gran Marnier or something subtle such as a dry sherry. The rings of black-then-red-then-blue berries are extraordinarily beautiful but perfectly ripe peaches or other juicy fruits, artfully arranged, would be spectacular as well.

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Slice (assumes 8): 391 Calories; 20g Tot Fat; 14g Sat Fat; 61mg Cholesterol; 315mg Sodium; 41g Carb; 3g Fiber; 20g Sugar; 5g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 9 & PointsPlus 10 & SmartPoints 18 & Freestyle 16

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More Fabulous (and Fabulously Easy) Pies & Tarts

(hover with a mouse for a description; otherwise click a photo to view the recipe)

~ more recipes for pies and tarts ~
~ more dessert recipes ~

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Shop Your Pantry First

(helping home cooks save money on groceries)

~ cream cheese ~
~ blueberries ~
~ blackberries ~
~ raspberries ~


~ All Recipes, By Ingredient ~
~ How to Save Money on Groceries ~

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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