There are always five or six wrinkly specimens sitting in a bowl, reminding us of our failure to be a fruit-eating family.
We buy fruit like a family that eats lots of it, in the hope that one day we will become that family. Until that day, there will always be The Fruit Bowl of Shame. It pleases me to dispatch these accusatory apples and pious plums, and this is the best way I've found so far. Older fruit actually works better in this recipe. The slightly spongy apples absorb the syrup and the purple of the plums to become translucent, glowing fruit-jewels. And to think, they were destined for the bin.
Which fruits works?
What do you have in your Fruit Bowl of Shame? Apples (peeled), pears, nectarines, plums and pineapple all work. Bananas and melon don't. The jury's out on kiwi and berries. They tend to turn into soup in the syrup, especially if they're a little tired already.
The Fruit Tart of Shame
~ 8 servings ~
Fruit filling ingredients
3 cups of diced fruit (I used 4 small peeled apples and 4 medium plums)
1 cup raw caster sugar
2 tbsp rose water (optional, but incredible)
250g mascarpone
1/2 tsp salt
Pastry ingredients
Ingredients
180g cold butter (Salted or unsalted - whatever. If you use salted, don't add the extra salt in this recipe.)
240g plain flour
60g raw caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
3 tbsp cold water
Pastry Method
If you're lazy and rich, by all means buy ready made pastry, but only if it's the fancy all-butter stuff. The frozen vegetable oil based shite tastes like betrayal and does not deserve my delicious fruit topping - even if the fruit has seen better days.
Going to make your own? Good. Preheat the oven to 180C, fan forced.
Sift the flour, sugar, and salt if you're using it, onto a clean kitchen worktop.
Grate the butter into the flour, then working quickly and using only the tips of your fingers (so you don't melt the butter with your clammy hands) rub the butter into the flour mixture. You're trying to form crumbly, lumpy granules.
Now pile the mixture up in a mound and make a well in the middle.
Pour in the water and vanilla extract, then using a pastry scraper or silicone spatula, fold the dry mixture into the liquid, turning, smearing, evenly distributing the moisture throughout the now lumpy pastry.
Using your hands, bring the mixture into a lump and give it a few smears under the heel of your palm until it's come together - but only just. Over-handling the pastry makes it tough and more shrinky when it cooks.
Follow recipes, but not off a cliff.
Not all flour behaves the same, and not all butter has the same moisture content. Ovens are often wildly inaccurate and a large Australian egg is only a medium in Europe. So use your common sense. If your pastry feels too sticky, sift and work-in a little more flour. If it's too crumbly and won't come together, add a little more water. My oven temps and times are reasonably reliable, but probably not as reliable as your eyes and nose.
Now scoop up your pastry into a reasonably homogeneous boulder.
Flatten the boulder a little so it's more like a chubby disk, dust it with more flour and wrap it in cling-wrap. Pop the pastry in the fridge and leave it for 30 minutes before rolling it out.
You want the pastry to be room temp before you add the toppings, so best get cooked and cooled early.
Grease a 24cm (bigger, smaller, whatever) tart dish.
Roll the pastry out so it's wide enough to generously overlap the dish.
Here's a life-changing trick: Roll the pastry out on a clean, floured tea-towel (that's a dish towel if you're American). You can then lift the pastry up with the towel and flip it into the tart dish, rather than try and scrape it up and watch it fall apart. You can do the same trick using greaseproof paper but a towel gives you more control of the manoeuvre.
If it does fall apart, don't stress, just jigsaw it into the dish and smoosh the pastry back together using a little water as glue.
Don't bother trimming off the overhanging bits now, it's going to shrink in the oven. If you don't like the rustic vibe, you can trim it off with a sharp knife around the lip of the dish once it's cooked. Snob.
Before it goes in the oven, lay a sheet of greaseproof paper over the pastry and pour in some dried beans or uncooked rice to weigh down the pastry so it doesn't puff-up in the middle. Bake at 180C for 15 minutes then remove the greaseproof paper and weights. Return the naked tart base to the oven for another 10 minutes to turn golden.
Let the baked tart base cool while you make the fruit filling.
Fruit Filling Method
Put your diced fruit, sugar, rose water and salt in a small/medium pan, give it a stir, pop on the lid and stick it on a low heat. Once you see liquid accumulating, give it another stir.
Once the fruit is swimming in bubbling juices, remove the lid and let it reduce down to a sticky, syrupy gloop. This takes about 10 minutes but depends on the fruit you choose. Keep going until it's thick enough for a spoonful of the topping to sit up and form a mound for a moment when you dollop it on a plate.
Let it cool to room temperature.
Spread all the mascarpone over the bottom of the pastry base.
Spoon in the cooled fruit topping and spread it more-or-less evenly over the mascarpone.
You can eat this straight away but everything firms up and holds together better after a little chill in the fridge.
Now gorge on it completely guilt-free. It is fruit after all.
Comments