Fresh Fruit Tart with Mango Curd Filling

Every time I stop-over at my local bakery, the beautiful and intricately adorned fresh-fruit tart never fails to catch my eye. I always leave the store fantasizing about baking the tart myself but have been pushing the plan out until now. I am so glad to finally put myself to the task as the result was a well deserved treat, satisfying visually as well as to the palate.Strange as it may sound, I strongly dislike or rather distrust the store-bought pastry dough and planned to make the dessert with fresh home-made dough, knowing exactly what goes into it and giving myself the opportunity to experiment and tweak as desired. I also did not want to settle for the regular custard filling but wanted to try something fruity. I finally set myself to make a Mango Mousseline, but the amount of butter that the original recipe called for intimidated me so I transformed it into a healthier fruit curd. 

Mango Curd - Tart Filling

This weekend was pretty exciting as we went for Tetelestai (a contemporary musical portrayal of the Trial, Execution and Resurrection of Jesus) at our church. In order to get my little daughter acquainted with the whole musical concept and the story of the Passion, we had given her a rundown on how the “bad people” crucify Jesus. It was a beautiful show, very well presented and we were glad that Mia was able to follow it (at least it seemed so, as she had numerous questions). As the show progressed our little one started getting curious on when Jesus would die and why?  We also realized that she had a pretty emphatic heart when she started sobbing seeing Jesus being beaten, mocked and forced to put the crown of thorns. She was literally in tears crying out.. “Mama – I don’t want Jesus to die”. Poor thing, she was so affected by the enactment that she was lying on my shoulder sobbing while they were portraying the crucifixion. When Jesus rose from death we pointed out to Mia that Jesus was fine and that all his boo-boo's were gone :) After the show we took Mia to meet the actors and she was definitely glad when “Jesus” gave her a hug, showed that he had no more boo-boo's and that he was perfectly fine.

Tart crust recipe mostly adapted from here

Yield: 10 inch crusts

Tart Crust Recipe
Ingredients 
1 ½ Cups - All-purpose flour
1 ½ Tablespoons sugar
½ Tsp - Salt
1/2 cup (1 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk
1/8 cup ice water

Directions 

• In a food processor pulse and combine flour and sugar. 
• Cut the chilled butter into small pieces and add it to the food processor 
• Pulse until mixture resembles a coarse meal (about 20 seconds) 
• In a bowl whisk the egg yolks and ice water 
• With food processor running, add the egg mixture through the feed tube. 
• Pulse until dough holds together. Do not process more than 30 seconds. 
• If the mixture is crumbly add more ice water 1 tablespoon at a time. 
• Flatten the dough into a disk and wrap it in plastic and refrigerator for least 1 hour 
• Lightly flour the work surface and roll out dough to a 14-inch round, about 1/4-inch thick. 
• Make sure there are no holes. If there are, patch them with some of the leftover pastry dough. 
• Fit flattened dough into a 10 inch round fluted tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing into edges. 
• Chill tart shell until firm, about 30 minutes. 
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
• Prick bottom of dough all over with a fork. (very important – don’t forget!) 
• Blind Baking steps (Bake the pastry "Blind" without filling): 
• Line the tart pan with parchment paper, leaving at least a 1-inch overhang. 
• Fill with pie weights or dried beans 
• Bake until edges are just beginning to turn golden, about 30 minutes. 
• Remove parchment paper and weights; continue baking until deep golden all over, 10 to 15 minutes. 
• Cool tart shell completely on wire rack. 

Mango Curd Recipe 
Ingredients
2 Cups – Sweetened Mango puree or any fruit puree (I used tinned mango pulp)
3/4 Cups – Sugar (adjust to your taste)
1 - Egg
3 - Egg yolks
5 Tablespoon - Cornstarch
1/2 Cup – Heavy Whipping cream
1 Tsp – Orange zest
2 Tablespoons – Freshly squeezed Orange juice

Directions 

• Heat the fruit puree in a saucepan.   
• Beat sugar, egg and egg yolks until smooth, silky and pale colored. It would take about a minute. 
• Stir in cornstarch and whisk to incorporate it into the mixture. 
• Pour a hot mango puree into the egg mixture and whisk well. Slowly whisk in about ½ of the heated mango puree. 
• Now pour this mixture back into the mango puree in the saucepan and whisk until the mixture bubbles and thickens. 
• Remove from heat and let it cool. 
• Add orange zest, orange juice and whipping cream and whisk for about 5 minutes. 

Fruit Tart 
Ingredients
Fresh fruits (about 4 cups)
Tart crust
Mango curd
Glaze(optional)
4 Tbsp - Apricot Jam
1 Tsp - Water

Directions 

• Spoon mango curd into cooled tart shell and spread it evenly with a spatula. 
• Top with the fresh fruits of your choice and arrange them in any pattern you prefer 
• Whisk the apricot jam with water and brush it on the fruit - I haven't done this

Notes and Tips 

• Make ahead: 1) Tart dough can be frozen up to 1 month. 2) The fruit curd can be stored in an air tight container for 2-3 days 
• The fruit tart is best when consumed the same day they are assembled. 
• I used Kiwi, Blackberry, Blueberry and Strawberry to decorate the fruit tart but you can use any combination of fruits of your choice depending on availability. 
• You can make any fruit curd such as passion fruit, peach, strawberry. 
• Don’t skip the orange zest in the mango curd recipe else it might be eggy. 
• You can substitute lemon or lime zest with orange zest 
• Use ripe fruits for decoration. 
• Store the beans you used for blind baking in a ziplock bag after they have been cooled completely. You can reuse this set each time you bake a pie or tart crust.