Fruit Tart

Fruit Tart

Fruit Tart

This classic fruit tart recipe eliminates the most time-consuming aspect by using a boxed pudding mix. Delicious and easy!

Makes

8-12 servings

Active time:

30 minutes

Total Time:

90 minutes

Good For:

Dessert

Inroduction

About this Recipe

Perfect, buttery-sweet pastry crust…creamy filling…fresh fruit bursting with flavor. What could be better on a bright summer’s day? Best of all, this fruit tart recipe is EASY! (Because, yeah, I cheated. And I’m not apologizing for it.)

As I was hunting for classic fruit tart recipes, I quickly decided that the time-consuming custard filling was the part making me not want to actually tackle the recipe. Then I thought, “Why get hung up on that? Just use a boxed pudding mix, silly!” And so I did. 😉

I chose a cheesecake flavored pudding (great choice, but vanilla would work too!), and it was sugar free, because that’s what my supermarket had in stock. As it happened, I also had sugar-free apricot jam on hand when I randomly decided to make this on a Monday evening over the summer…so I thought, why not embrace the no-sugar-added thing and use All Purpose In the Raw for the crust too? It turned out PERFECTLY, and I didn’t spill the beans on the sugar-free bit until AFTER the four adults, 1 teen, and 5 children had already devoured their initial servings and fought over the the last pieces. 😉

Making this in the summer meant I had some really delicious fresh berries on hand–I chose strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and some fruit-cup mandarins that I had stashed too. I’ve made it before with kiwi slices, which I love, and mango slices would work as well. The key to fruit selection is making sure they’re things that won’t juice too much or turn too brown, which rules out apples, bananas, pears, peaches, or sliced full-size oranges.

This recipe takes a bit of planning ahead, but most of the time is just chill time. Active time is really only about 30 minutes total. Plus, you get the joy of something truly beautiful and artistic with those berry arrangements! I promise you, this dessert LOOKS incredibly impressive and will get some oohs and ahhs from whomever you share it with, but it’s easy-peasy to put together.

Ingredients

Instructions

For the Crust

  • ½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup sugar or substitute
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 egg yolk
  • Nonstick cooking spray and/with flour for the pan

 

Filling

  • 1 box vanilla or cheesecake instant pudding
  • 2 cups milk
  • ~4 cups fresh fruit (berries, kiwi, mandarin pieces, mango) assorted
  • ¼ cup apricot jam
  1. Using the paddle attachment in a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar or sweetener and salt until pale and creamy. This should take about 2 minutes on medium speed. Scrape the sides and then add the flower, mixing until it’s fully incorporated. It ought to resemble course sand. Add the egg yolk and mix again. Knead the dough into a ball with your hand. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 5 days.
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  2. Spray a tart pan with a removable bottom (anything from 9-11 inches in diameter will work for this recipe) with nonstick cooking spray; either use the kind that has flour in it already, or else flour the pan after you’ve sprayed.
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  3. Press the crust dough, bit by bit, into the pan in a thin layer, making certain it gets in all the fluted edges and covers the whole bottom. There will be enough, promise! Use a knife to trim any excess from the top edge and work it into the bottom. Freeze for another 30 minutes.
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  4. Adjust the oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 350˚. Bake the crust for 23-26 minutes, until lightly browned and golden. Let it cool completely on a wire rack.
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  5. While the crust is cooling, mix up your pudding with the milk according to package directions, making sure you get all lumps out. Chill while the crust cools.
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  6. Once the crust is COMPLETELY cool, spread the chilled pudding over the shell. Top with sliced strawberries, (unsliced) blackberries and/or raspberries, blueberries, mandarin orange slices, sliced kiwi, sliced mango, or other fruits that won’t juice too much or brown too quickly.
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  7. Melt the apricot jam in the microwave in 30-second intervals until it’s loose enough to spread. Use a pastry brush to brush it over the fruit, giving it a nice gloss.
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  8. Refrigerate until ready to eat. Slice like a pie into 8-12 servings and enjoy!

From the Books

Fruit tart plays a rather crucial role in A Beautiful Disguise when Lady Marigold’s “stunt double” makes the misstep of eating some when the lady herself never would have. For shame, Gemma! 😉

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Classic Porridge

Classic Porridge

Classic Porridge

Soaked or slow-cooked oat groats create a classic porridge with a satisfying bite and familiar oat flavor, a perfect base for your fixings!

Makes

6 servings

Prep time:

2 minutes

Total Time:

Overnight

Good For:

Breakfast

Inroduction

About this Recipe

You can’t get more classic as a breakfast food than porridge! But…what is it? Oatmeal? Something different? Technically, the word “porridge” describes any hot cereal made from whole grains…but the most classic version does indeed use oats: whole oat groats!

If you’re familiar with steel-cut oats, they’re the closest to groats, just already processed. But if you’re looking for a true WHOLE grain experience, grab a bag of groats, and then either soak or slow-cook them overnight. I’ve personally found the slow-cooker version to be preferable, but if you don’t like the chew of the whole grains, processing them in a blender or food processor after an overnight soak will yield a texture more like traditional steel-cut oatmeal.

This creates a great base…that you can then dress up as desired! We’ve done peanut butter and banana…strawberries and cream…brown sugar cinnamon…even maple and bacon. All were equally delicious. If you’re a one-flavor type of person, you can mix the whole batch into that flavor. Since my family likes variety, I just make the base recipe and then we fix our individual bowls to our tastes.

Ingredients

Instructions

  • 1 cup oat groats
  • 4 ¼ cups water
  • Pinch of salt
  • Flavorings to taste

 

  1. Combine oat groats and water in a slow cooker the night before. Add a pinch of salt.
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  2. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.
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  3. Add cinnamon, maple syrup, brown sugar or alternative, fresh fruit, jam, cream, or any other toppings and stir-ins you desire! (Pictured with strawberry jam and fresh-cut strawberries, which pairs perfectly with a tablespoon of heavy cream.)
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  4. Store leftovers in the fridge.

Alternate Instructions

  1. The night before, cover oat groats with 1-2 inches of water in a large bowl. Let soak overnight.
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  2. In the morning, drain the groats, then combine them in a food processor blender with 2 cups of fresh water. Pulse for about 30 seconds or until the groats have broken up and resemble steel-cut oats.
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  3. Add mixture to a pot, add an addition 2 cups of water, and cook for 20-30 minutes, until the oats reach you desire tenderness. Top or stir in your choice of flavorings, as above.

From the Books

Porridge would be enjoyed by all my English characters, and it gets a special shout-out in A Beautiful Disguise when (gasp!) the lord and lady make their own breakfast.

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Victoria Cake

Victoria Cake

Victoria Cake

A classic tea cake with whipped cream and berries.

Servings

12

Prep time:

20 min

Total Time:

1.5 hours plus chill

Good For:

Dessert, Tea

Inroduction

About this Recipe

When you write about Edwardian England as much as I do, you come across a lot of recipes for tea treats. Interestingly, it was for one of my Guideposts mystery novels that I discovered Victoria Cake and fell in love with the simplicity and scrumptious flavors. If there’s anything better than vanilla and berries and whipped cream, I haven’t found it.

Best of all, you can use ANY jam and fresh berries to make this cake! Strawberry is a classic, but raspberries or blackberries or blueberries would all work just as well. Get creative and try it with orange marmalade, lemon curd, or turn it into a vanilla black forest cake with cherry pie filling. The possibilities are endless! (And delicious.)

Ingredients

Instructions

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 ½ sticks butter at room temperature
  • 1 ¼ cups superfine sugar
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • a pinch of salt
  • raspberry or strawberry jam for filling
  • heavy whipping cream for filling
  • confectioner’s sugar for the top of the cake
  • fresh berries for garnish, if desired

 

INSTRUCTIONS

TO MAKE THE CAKE:

 

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Line the bottoms of two 8” round pans with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pans and set aside.
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  2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
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  3. Add about one third of the beaten eggs, and mix well at medium speed. Then add about a third of the sifted flour. Repeat this step. Add the rest of the eggs and mix well, then turn the mixer to low and add the final flour and mix until just combined.
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  4. Using a scale, divide the mixture evenly between the two pans and bake for about 35 minutes.
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  5. Once you can smell the cake and it looks done through the oven door, open the oven and carefully check with a toothpick inserted in the middle (cake falls easily, so only test when you’re confident it’s close!). When the cake is done, remove them from the oven and allow to cool completely.
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  6. To remove: place a cooling rack over the top of the cake and flip it over quickly. Remove the tin and the parchment paper and allow to cool completely before filling.

 

ASSEMBLY:

 

  1. Beat the cream until it’s thick enough to fill the cake and support the next layer.
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  2. Using a cake slicer, place the cake layers, flat side down on the counter and slice off the top to make them even. (Save or freeze the leftover cake to trifles or cake pops!)
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  3. Place one layer, cut side up, on a serving plate and spread a generous amount of the jam on top.
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  4. Next, spread the cream over the jam. Leave about an inch between the cream and the edge, as it will squish out.  Top with the second layer, cut side down.
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  5. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and chill for an hour or two. Top with fresh berries, if desired.

From the Books

Victoria Cake is served in A Royal Tea, and this same recipe is included in the back of the book. Gemma is also enjoying a slice in A Noble Scheme, book 2 in the Imposters series. And you can bet that Mrs. Dawe served it aplenty at tea time in the Secrets of the Isles books!

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