Apparently I have a thing for making fruit tarts around July 4th because I made this Fruit Custard Tart around this same time a few years ago. Tarts have become a new favorite (of which there are many) since they’re usually fairly easy and often involve fruit — so light and delicious as well.

This recipe is a little more time consuming that some of the others, but not by a lot. Since the tart dough needs to rest for 3 hours, I made it the night before and just let it chill overnight. The next morning, I rolled it out, blind baked it (finally using those pie weights I bought years ago), and used some leftover dough to make a bonus mini tart in one of my newer mini pans.

Pastry cream always used to stress me out, mostly because of the egg tempering step but I think I’ve got it down now. Don’t forget the plastic wrap directly on the surface while it cools to prevent that weird skin from forming. You’ll want to chill it for at least two hours. (Note: you can make this the day before, too if you want)

This sauce is basically just strawberries, sugar, and water cooked down until the fruit starts falling apart. I strained mine, and while I didn’t quite get a full cup, it was close enough. The gelatin step made me a little nervous—my track record with gelatin isn’t the best. It was a little hotter than maybe it should have been after a brief stint in the microwave, but I just said a prayer and went with it.

As for the assembling my crust shrank a bit during baking (I’m sure that’s pretty normal), but I think I overfilled it with pastry cream. Which is a shame because I could have totally eaten that with a spoon. When I layered on the strawberries and poured the sauce over the top, it all started to ooze out and pool around the edges of the tart pan. I started to panic a little but I didn’t mess with anything and just put it into the fridge and hoped it would set up properly.

When I came back to check on it I could see that the strawberry sauce oozed over the crust almost all the way so that was disappointing. I couldn’t quite tell if it was setting up the way it should though and figured I probably wouldn’t know until we actually cut into it. Thankfully it did seem to set up when I took off the bottom of the tart pan right before serving. It also took off the entire layer of strawberry sauce which had pooled up and created a nice sort of jello consistency around the edge of the crust.

Even though it didn’t set up quite as neatly as I’d hoped, the flavor was spot-on: sweet, creamy, light, and very refreshing. Very similar to that earlier fruit tart, but a little more decadent with the strawberry glaze.

I’m not giving this full marks on my end just because it didn’t quite turn out, but I really do think it was because I overfilled with pastry cream. I’d try this again for sure because I want to see how it really turns out altogether. Very pretty though in spite of my error!

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	8
Taste	9
Visual	8

Recipe Used: Pies & Tacos