Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream

Summertiiiime and the living is easy...Nothing makes it feel like summer like fresh berries. And there's nothing like eating berries on top of a buttery crust and smooth vanilla cream.

 

This fruit tart took me 3 sessions over a 36 hour period. One to make the dough, one to make the cream and one to bake and assemble. The recipe doesn't call for this much time; this is just what baking with a 4 month old looks like. 

When all was said and done, it was delicious. After finishing my inaugural piece(s), Mabel woke so I had to take my full belly into bed to cuddle her back to sleep.  ...sigh...

I borrowed this recipe from Annie's Eats. The crust was like shortbread and had a good sweetness and crunch. It browned on the edges more than I would have liked though and the sides slid down as often happens with pie crusts (why does that happen?). Also when I rolled it out, it stuck to the wooden cutting board and was a bit of mess to transfer to the pan.  I think it needs to be colder.   Next time on the crust,  I'll try this crust.

The pastry cream was like custard, very rich, creamy. The texture was cool and refreshing but a little too runny when I cut the tart. Maybe something happened in cooking it that made it not set up enough. More investigation needed.

For fruit I used strawberries, mango, blue berries and one raspberry. Very fresh and tasty. Hard to get the mango pieces cut uniform and laid out nice. I skipped the apple jelly.  I would prefer a higher fruit to cream ratio. I think it could have used half the cream and more fruit piled on.

 

But it was delicious....and when I brought the leftovers to my coworkers, it went quickly.