This weekend was Grilliardsburg, Karol Lu’s annual BBQ held  in the back courtyard of Redd’s Tavern.  For last year’s event I made a lattice-topped peach pie, and I thought it might be hard to top that this year. Not to mention I had less time to prepare, so I decided instead of a pie I’d make rustic tarts.  They weren’t going to look as fancy, but I’d found some nice-looking fresh blueberries and sour cherries at the farmers’ market, so at least I knew they’d taste good.

I also used the all-purpose flour from Cayuga Farms, who grow and mill their wheat upstate and sell it at the Union Square and McCarren Park Greenmarkets. Their flour is less refined than what you find in the grocery store, so the crust has a darker color and a heartier, nutty flavor. It definitely has a fuller taste than most white flour, but doesn’t taste like whole wheat.

Rustic tarts really are quicker to put together than a full-blown pie: just roll the dough out into something like a circle, spread or pile the filling on its center dot the filling with chunks of butter, and fold the edges of the dough over onto it. There’s no need to make the edges of the crust even, or to flute the edges of the crust, or to weave an lattice on top.

As I was assembling my tart I had a brief, small panic: the crust wasn’t holding together. It was tearing. Since the tart doesn’t bake in a pan, it’s less forgiving when it comes to patching up tears. I was just about ready to give up and turn my tart into a pandowdy, when I remembered I’d forgotten a step: the fraisage.  In the fraisage, which I learned from an old issue of Cooks Illustrated, you lightly smear the dough away from yourself with the ball of your hand. This toughens up the dough slightly, enough to allow it to be assembled and baked without a pan, but not as much as kneading would do. After fraisaging it gently I re-rolled the dough & had a much easier time assembling it.

The look of a rustic tart definitely has a charm of its own. You can leave them entirely rough-edged, like mine, or you can pare the edges of the crust until they’re smooth and even, and layer the edges into uniform folds. This will give your tart an elegant look, like this, but then, that’s not very rustic, is it?

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed