Recipe of the Day
Discover a New Recipe Every Day. Give Back With Every Bite.
Every day, we feature a hand-picked recipe for you to discover, cook, and share. The best part?
Every recipe you read helps feed the hungry.
Most of us have that one no-fail recipe that we turn to time and time again when we’re called on to bring a dish to an event. But if you don’t, you can stop looking… ’cause you just found it. Our No-Fuss Any Fruit Tart is so simple to make and versatile enough that it works any time of year, with any type of fruit. But best of all, it’s a reliably delicious crowd-pleaser, the kind that leaves you with a totally empty serving plate and a whole lot of requests for the recipe.
It starts – as any good tart does – with an excellent pastry dough. And this one happens to have a few little tricks up its sleeve. It’s our No-Fuss French Pastry Dough and the magic lies in the fact that there’s no rolling or cutting in required, yet you still end up with an irresistibly buttery tart dough that’s just crisp enough but never tough.
You can read more about it here, but the basic idea is that you heat the butter, sugar, salt, and a little bit of oil in the oven until it’s nice and bubbly and then you stir the flour in. From there, you just press the dough into the tart pan and carry on with your filling. It’s the complete opposite of the usual pastry method. It’s a method that seems like it could never work… but it does. Exceedingly well.
The rest of the beauty of the Any Fruit Tart lies in the fact that (you guessed it!) you can use pretty much any fruit. The crumble topping always stays the same, and you just change out the fruit beneath it according to what you have on hand or what’s in season.
The crumble topping adds any extra sweetness the filling might need and it also gives the fruit a lovely sugary sheen. If you’re using a particularly juicy fruit, you might want to add an extra tablespoon of flour, but otherwise, the topping remains steadfast and unchanging.
You can use blueberries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, a mixture of berries, strawberries and rhubarb… the possibilities are endless. Suggested quantities are listed out in the recipe below, but those are of a forgiving nature. Basically, just use enough to fill up your tart pan. It’s as simple as that. And simple is always best.
Any Fruit Tart
Ingredients
- For the dough:
- 9 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 1/2 tablespoons water
- 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 rounded cups all-purpose flour
- For the fruit topping:
- Any fruit, enough to cover entirety of the tart, such as:
- 5 small recipe peaches, apricots, plums or nectarines, pitted and thickly sliced
- 2 6 oz containers of blueberries
- 4 cups mixed berries
- 3 cups chopped rhubarb and 1 1/2 cups of strawberries
- For the crumble:
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- In a medium glass or ovenproof bowl, combine the butter, oil, water, sugar, and salt. Place the bowl in the oven for 15 minutes or until the butter is bubbling and starts to brown around the edges.
- Remove hot bowl from oven, add flour and mix in until blended. Once cool enough to handle, transfer dough to an 11-inch tart pan and spread out evenly.
- Add fruit of choice onto dough and spread out evenly. If using peaches, plums, nectarines, or apricots, arrange slices in a circle over the dough, overlapping slightly. If using berries, spread out evenly across dough.
- Next, prepare the topping. Mix together sugar, flour, and salt in a medium bowl. If your fruit is especially juicy, add another tablespoon of flour. Using your fingers, pinch the cold butter into the flour mixture until crumbly.
- Sprinkle crumble topping evenly over the top of the fruit. Bake until shiny bubbles appear over fruit and crust is slightly brown, 35-45 minutes. Cool on rack. Serve warm or room temperature. Enjoy!
Dough recipe adapted from David Lebovitz.