Anja's amazing fruit tart

Ask and ye shall receive. 

Some people ask for world peace.

I ask for dessert.

Okay, okay -- how about world peace AND dessert?

So, the other day Anja was in a baking mood. 

I hinted at a fruit tart, and she smiled and set right to work.

(I am lucky in oh so many ways!)

Here's a beautiful photographic log of her efforts, and the delicious outcome.

The best tart pie dough recipe, from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savory and Sweet. 

flour, egg, butter, sugar, salt

how I love what you do together.

work it, girl.

oh beautiful.

oh dough.

oh, luminous orb of delicious things to come.

love pokes from the fork.

and then, silly me, I forgot to take pictures for awhile.

here's what's missing:

- the fiasco with blind-baking the crust
(the missing pie weights, and a last minute substitute of all of Bootsy's change) 

- the absolutely sublime, ethereal vanilla pastry cream.  (Also Michel Roux's recipe)
From splitting the bean and harvesting each little fleck of flavor to the steam rising from gorgeous milk...  Pastry cream is possibly my favorite thing in the world.  Luscious, velvety, yet light.  Mouth feel like nobody's business.  I could go on and on with sensual superlatives.  Pastry cream paired with fruit is practically cause for a fainting couch.  I will most certainly swoon.

Thankfully Anja remembered the camera for some final shots:

oh, to be glazed over in a good way...

(not that oh-I-can't-sit-through-another-meeting kind of way...)

and le grand finale.

Dessert that makes me say Alleluia.

Be still my heart.

-----

A bit about the fruit:

 The fruit is a medley of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and plums --

all local, harvested and preserved this past summer. 

(This is one very, very good reason to freeze fruit.)

A big 'Thank You' to Anja!

We keep telling her she should start a blog.  I hope she does.

If she does, I'll let you know all about it.

Either way, I'm nominating her to be in charge of my birthday dessert this year!