FREEFORM BLUEBERRY TART FULL
FREEFORM BLUEBERRY TART FREE

With no pie tin involved, these desserts are simpler to assemble and quicker to bake than traditional pies. Sometimes referred to as free-form pies, rustic tarts, or crostatas, galettes are an incredibly easy way to make the most of all the amazing fresh fruit that summer has to offer. For awhile, this meant my dessert dreams translated into pints of store-bought ice cream. As much as I love desserts, due to my apartment’s lack of air conditioning, I am not willing to turn my home into a sauna every time I’m craving something sweet. This tart can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days if well covered in plastic wrap or foil.Getting food in and out of the oven within an hour is essential for any baking I do during the summer months. Cool on a wire rack and eat when warm or cold. If the pastry is feeling a bit soft, put the tart in the fridge for a few minutes before baking.Ĭook for 45 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Scatter some sugar over the pastry on the edges. Fold in the borders of the tart and pinch them to make sure the juices from the fruit don’t escape during cooking.

Arrange the segments of peach overlapping each other slightly in an outer circle and then an inner circle so that it looks pretty. Place the jam in a circle on the pastry, leaving an edge of 5 cm. Transfer to the oven tray which you will have covered with baking paper. Reshape if needed (it will become pliable very quickly). After 30 minutes in the fridge, remove the pastry. Place the pastry in the fridge (still covered by the two sheets of cling film). Now use a rolling pin and make a rough circle with the pastry, which will become quite thin – mine had a diameter of about 30cm. Place a second sheet of cling wrap over the pastry and using the heel of your hand, flatten it. Place the ball of pastry on a sheet of cling wrap. Sprinkle on the salt and milk and knead it a couple of times until the mixture is cohesive. The mixture will be crumbly and don’t worry if there are a few chunks of butter visible – this is a rustic pie. Add the butter and incorporate using the tines of a fork (or use your fingers as I do). It is the perfect taste of summer.ġ10 g unsalted butter, cold from the fridge cut into slices or small cubesĢ ripe yellow peaches, sliced into 16 segmentsĢ-3 tablespoons of good quality apricot jam It is lovely on its own but you can also serve it with some mascarpone or vanilla ice-cream on the side.

The buttery crumbly pastry complements the sweetness of ripe peaches beautifully. You just need to modify the jam you put under the fruit on the pastry base if you use different fruit – for plums I use plum jam and with the blueberry tart I used blackberry jam. You can substitute the peaches with other seasonal fruit if you like, particularly stone fruit or berries.

FREEFORM BLUEBERRY TART FREE

And since the pie is free form, you don’t need a special cake tin either – just some baking paper and an oven tray. You don’t need a food processor, just very cold butter and fingers that work quickly. I wrote about peaches in a previous blog post but I recently discovered a recipe for pate sable which is super easy and works beautifully with fruit to make a free form tart. How happy he would have been if he had been alive to see this season’s crop!

FREEFORM BLUEBERRY TART FULL

My father planted several stone fruit trees in the back garden about 20 years ago and this year, for the first time in about five years, the peach tree is full of fruit. Stone fruit are one of the joys of summer – starting with apricots, which appear at the start of the season, moving through to peaches, nectarines and finishing with plums.

Freeform blueberry tart