All the world loves a fruit tart

This is the tart I brought to a party at Zoe's on Saturday.

I wish I'd made two.

It's a simple sugar cookie base with sweetened cream cheese spread on it and then piled with fruit. It's best made in a pizza pan so you can make pretty concentric rings of fruit (mandarin oranges and chunks of pineapple are nice additions that I forgot to buy) and cut even slices. Mine went missing in the move though, so I just smeared the dough as evenly as I could on a regular baking sheet and got Sarah to cut it:

It's my favorite kind of recipe, where all of the components are simple, but they come together into something that's much greater than the sum of its parts. The only thing keeping this from being the ideal summer dessert is that you have to bake the base. However, you could bake it first thing in the morning before it's too hot and then put it together right before you serve it, which I should have done. The cookie is crisp enough that the pieces hold their shape when you pick them up, so you can bring this to a barbeque or party where you don't know what the plate/fork situation is going to be. Man, I really wish I had another of these waiting for me at home.

Fruit Tart

Crust
zest from one lemon
1 stick butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 T milk
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. vanilla

Cream
juice from one lemon
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 c. confectioner's sugar (or 3/4 c. granulated sugar)

Assorted fruit

Preheat oven to 350. Zest the lemon into a large mixing bowl and squeeze the juice into a smaller one.

For the crust, add the sugar to the zest; mix and cream with butter. Mix the egg, milk and vanilla in, followed by the dry ingredients. Pat into a 14" pizza pan and bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

For the cream, add the cream cheese and sugar to the lemon juice and beat well.

When the crust is thoroughly cooled, spread cream evenly and arrange fruit on top.

Bonus: You can watch Christopher Walken roast a chicken here.

Comments

[Marcy]

May I request that when you make the next one you make enough for all of us out here, too? Thanks ever so.

[sarah]

Fruit pizza! Love it. I've made it with chocolate chip cookie and vanilla pudding and the crowd goes wild. Love the chicken video, thanks for the link!

[Octopus Knitting]

Yummy! Your fruit tart is just lovely. Hmm... chicken with pears... Walken looks like a pretty good cook!

[Becky]

That looks beautiful and yummy. I like the square pan.