Fresh fruit tarts

Four Inch Tartes individuelles

West Michigan is known for it’s grey skies and lack of sunny days during the winter months, but lately I’ve been making a variety of fresh fruit tarts which simply add their own version of sunshine and brightness to the seemingly dreary weather. The good news is when we do have a sunny day, it’s a beauty! And some of our sunsets are absolutely gorgeous. Ahhhh . . . . there’s something about a Michigan sky.

Tartelettes Petits Fours

While I’d prefer to use fresh local summer berries and stone fruits for my fresh fruit tarts, we’re fortunate to have pretty decent berries coming to us from California as well as citrus and all manner of tropical fruits from various parts of the country and the world. It’s interesting that most requests I receive for fresh fruit tarts happen during the winter months. I guess it’s just that desire for something colorful and delicious, and there’s nothing wrong with that!

TWO and a half inch Tartes individuelles

I love the pinkish-orange of the Cara-Cara variant of the navel orange - just like one of our beautiful Michigan sunsets, especially when paired with the brilliant red of raspberries. And the blackberries lean more toward the end-of-sunset dusk when things start darkening into the deep purple hues of the night sky.

Nine inch Tarte

The nuts and bolts of this type of tart include a standard pâte sucrée crust, a classic crème pâtissiére and, of course, an assortment of fresh fruit. Whatever suits your fancy.

Especially when I’m assembling a large tart, I like to do a mock up of my fruit lay out before actually placing the fruit on top of the crème. Here I’m using raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and Cara-Cara citrus. You might notice the pomegranate seeds at the top - I didn’t end up using them for my own aesthetic reasons (artistic license, right?).

Working on the layout

Assembly in process

I must say that finishing a fresh fruit tart gives one quite a sense of satisfaction. And, of course, one hopes that the recipients will be just as satisfied!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. Here’s to many more baking adventures! And may you enjoy your own sunsets wherever you are.

Bûche de Noël

In preparation for a class I recently taught on making a traditional Bûche de Noël, I did some test runs of the process and created a petite log with a flourless chocolate sponge cake filled with whipped caramel mascarpone cream, coated with medium ganache “bark” and finished off with meringue mushrooms, pistachio moss and a dusting of powdered sugar snow. FYI - all of this just happens to be gluten free!

When making one of these babies, organization and planning are essential. The good news is pretty much all of the components can be prepared ahead. Meringue mushrooms will hold for a couple of weeks if kept in an airtight container in a non-humid environment. Bake the cake, fill and roll it a day or two ahead then finish up with glazing or frosting the log and completing the garnish the day you plan to serve. Cool!

Before you begin, decide what you would like to use for your components: cake (typically some kind of sponge or nut meringue that lends itself nicely to rolling up), filling (from simple whipped cream to Swiss meringue buttercream to your favorite fruit curd), “frosting” (often a basic medium ganache) and garnish (here’s where you can follow the traditional path or go a little avant garde with your decor.)

I’m not here this time to share specific recipes with you but to simply encourage you to do some research and come up with what works well for you. HINT: Prueitt and Robertson’s Tartine and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Cake Bible are two great places to start.

And if you really want some inspiration, check out this link to some of the Bûches de Noël in Paris this season. It’s an entirely different world out there folks!

Below is a view of the table where four talented bakers created their own versions of the traditional holiday yule log.

It was lots of fun plus everyone was able to take their end result home. Yay!

ONE:

TWO:

THREE:

FOUR:

A big thanks to those who participated in the class.

Cheers!