I got some great tartlet pans last year for Christmas, and I kept thinking that when spring and summer fruit season rolled around, I'd be all over making fruit tartlets. I finally got around to it this morning, totally on a whim, since I noticed a confluence of fresh strawberries, peaches, and blueberries in my house.

I still remember the first time I saw a fruit tartlet, at a bakery in France. Bright, beautiful sliced fruit, under a shiny orange glaze, tucked into a perfect little circular pastry. I thought it was magical. I've had some that also have a thin layer of vanilla pastry cream under the fruit, and those are amazingly good, but I thought that for my first attempt, I'd try one that had just fruit and glaze.

I found this recipe and quartered it, because I didn't want to have fruit tartlets for the next week, but I noticed that the shells can be frozen, so next time, I may make a whole batch of shells and then freeze most of them. The pastry got just a tad bit overcooked in the 15 minutes it was in the oven, so next time I'll probably check it after about 13. Also, the glaze was very thick. Like, bordering on Jell-O thick. I'll definitely try less cornstarch next time. I thinned it out considerably with some water after it had cooled, but it still went on very gloppily, as you can see in the closeup photo. It tasted wonderful, though. The whole thing was delicious. I made one for Kent with just strawberries, thinking he would prefer that to one with fruits he didn't like, but he still looked at it skeptically and refused to try it, so Jack and I just ate all of them. One for each of us for second breakfast, one for each of us for dessert after dinner. Perfectly delightful.

My mom is in France this week, and I find myself wanting to make all kinds of foods that remind me of France. This was super fun to try, and it'll be even more fun if I can just pull a few shells out of the freezer and make a few of these when the mood strikes and the fruit is in season.

Labels: kitchen adventures, photography

• posted by erica 7/04/2011 08:58:00 PM
•