Fresh Fruit Tart With Vanilla Mascarpone Cream

Fresh Fruit Tart Crust

The base of our tart is a sweetened pastry crust. It’s kind of like pie dough, kind of like a cookie—but very much its own unique masterpiece. Crust like this lends the perfect sweet crunch under the blanket of vanilla cream and mountain of fresh fruit. It can be made ahead and refrigerated, or stick it in the freezer for later.

1. Whisk the wet ingredients together. This includes an egg, cream, and vanilla for flavor. Some recipes call for just an egg yolk, but the entire egg adds tenderness from the fat (yolk) and structure from the protein (egg white).
2. Combine the dry ingredients. We use flour, confectioners’ sugar, and salt. The first time I tested this recipe, I used granulated sugar to sweeten the dough. This did not turn out well—the granulated sugar cuts up all the butter, which causes the crust to melt into a buttery mass. Powdery confectioners’ sugar is the way to go!
3. Cut in the butter. Like you do with pie crust, use a pastry cutter to cut butter into the dry ingredients. Make sure your butter is cold—you don’t want it to melt before baking.
4. Add the wet ingredients. After a little mixing, the dough comes together into a ball. Chill it for at least 1 hour. Remember, cold dough is the best dough. It will hold its shape and structure better while baking.
5. Roll out the dough. Roll the dough into a circle and transfer it to a tart pan. Press it down into the pan so it’s really snug.
6. Blind bake the pie crust. The crust will lose some shape when exposed to direct heat, so we blind bake the crust using pie weights. (If you’re interested, here’s a post all about how to blind bake pie crust.) If you do not have pie weights, freeze the crust before baking. This prevents the dough from shrinking and losing shape—I learned this from Smitten Kitchen.
7. Let the crust cool completely.

Fruit Tart Filling

Many fruit tarts call for a detailed pastry cream or custard—while undeniably delicious, we’re keeping it simple. Just 4 ingredients needed for our zero effort cream filling: mascarpone, heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla. It tastes like cheesecake!

For flavor, use a mix of vanilla bean and pure vanilla extract. Vanilla pairs wonderfully with subtly sweet and buttery mascarpone—the key flavor in tiramisu so YOU KNOW it’s going to be good in this tart. To make it extra dreamy, try adding a little lemon juice and zest to the cream filling.

Fresh Fruit Topping

Here’s where you have full creative control. When selecting fruit for a fruit tart, I look for variation in color, texture, and size—as well as what flavors pair nicely together. Decorate the tart with circles or rows of fruit, or pile it all randomly on top. Either way it will taste good!

For the sparkly shimmer, brush some jam on top. Choose a light color variety like orange or apricot, water it down, and brush it on top of the fruit. While totally optional, sparkles are always a good idea.

A refreshing and summery fruit tart would be wonderful for summer holiday weekends. See more Memorial Day Weekend recipes and 4th of July desserts.