Fruit Tart With Pastry Cream

Fruit Tart With Pastry Cream
(Adapted from Williams Sonoma's Fruit Desserts)

Ingredients:

For the Pastry Cream (a nice sweet thick custard)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

For the Crust
I doubled up the crust that I make for my Italian Cheesecake and baked it at 300 for an hour; but I'll include a link to the original recipe's "Basic Tart Dough".

For the Fruit Topping
Fruits of your choice
1/2 cup Apricot Jam
Optional: 2 tbsp brown sugar and a splash of fruit liqueur (I used Chambord, a black raspberry liqueur).

Directions:

1. Make your pastry cream because it needs to cool a good 2-3 hours before you can use it. Heat the milk on medium heat until little bubbles start to form.

2. Remove the hot milk from the heat. In a separate bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together; add the cornstarch and salt and whisk well.

3. Very slowly pour the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs.

4. Return the mixture to the stove. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until your pastry cream is the consistency of a pudding - don't let it boil. It took me 4 minutes, the recipe suggests 10, but I didn't need that long.

5. Scrape the cream into a bowl and whisk in the vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 2-3 hours.

6. Make your crust, bake it and let it cool.

7. To assemble the tart, stir the pastry cream until it's smooth. Spoon it into the cooled crust and spread evenly.

8. Arrange your fruit over the pastry cream.

9. In a small pan over low heat, heat the jam until it liquefies. Push the mixture through a strainer. At this point the original recipe says to brush the liquefied jam carefully over the fruit to give it a glaze. Because half of my fruit was the frozen type (i.e. sour instead of sweet!), I changed this up a bit. After I strained the jam, I put it back into the pan and added brown sugar. I heated that until it was all liquefied, then added the liqueur. I carefully brushed the fruit, then let it sit for a bit until the glaze set. Then I covered it and put it in the fridge for an hour because Alex likes it cold. The recipe says to serve it room temperature.