Experimental Tart Dough

My very first try at making a tart!

 So I picked up these mini tart pans at Bed Bath and Beyond the other day. I don't normally make tarts. In fact, I've never made a tart!. It was an impulse buy.

What am I going to do with these mini tart pans?

Make a tart, of course.

I was fully planning on whipping up a small amount of standard pie crust dough to line one of the pans with, but while looking through various food blogs, I noticed a recipe on David Lebovitz's food blog for something he called French Tart Dough.

His French Tart Dough looked a lot like Cream Puff Dough (Pâte à Choux if you wanna be fancy) without the eggs!

His recipe calls for combining your fat, water, sugar and salt and slowly heating it in an oven for 15 minutes. This is done to slowly brown the butter and create a layer of flavor that way.

I decided to skip that and treat the recipe as if I was making a batch of Cream Puff Dough (minus adding the egg, of course). I quartered the recipe so it could fit one mini tart pan.


Experimental French Tart Dough (based on David Lebovitz)

1 oz unsalted butter
1/4 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoons water
1/4 tablespoon sugar
A pinch of salt
1/4 cup flour

1. Place the butter, oil, water, sugar and salt  in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and, with a wooden spoon or spatula, quickly add the flour. Return to heat and stir constantly until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a thick smooth ball (about a minute or two).

4. Transfer the dough a bowl and beat for a minute or two to release the steam from the dough.

5. Transfer the dough to a 4-inch mini tart mold with a removable bottom and spread it a bit with a spatula.

6. Once the dough is cool enough to handle, pat it into the shell with the heel of your and, and use your fingers to press it up the sides of the tart mold.

I think next time, I'll make a bit more dough

 7. Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork about ten times, then bake the tart shell in a 400 degree  oven for 15 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown.

Shrinkage! Baking the crust confirmed that I need more dough next time.

So now I had this baked tart shell. Now, what to fill it with? Can you believe I decided to take a tackle at making a tart, but didn't give any thought about a filling? I decided on a lemon curd for the filling. I got some blackberries in Chinatown as well so thought I'd top the tart with some. 

I should have added less curd to the tart before I did this. Oh well. Live and learn.

In the end, I subjected my family to the tart.

Nom, nom

I think they were pretty happy with it. I for one was pretty pleased with how the tart shell came out.