Fruits of Summer Dessert

Celebrate the end of summer vacation with a fruit dessert.  A rustic fruit tart is a wonderful presentation of delicious stone fruits and berries.  I made a batch of pastry dough, divided and refrigerated it and I'll be making tarts with various fruits all weekend.  

I chose to bake my tarts on a pizza stone in the oven.  I rolled out a slab of dough and topped it with prepared peaches and raspberries.  Just fold over the edges and bake.  Top with ice cream if you wish or whipped cream.  Tonight I'll make a plum tart.
Here is the recipe I followed, mostly for the pastry dough and loosely for the filling.  It is from Tyler Florence on foodtv.com

Pastry:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 lemon, zest finely grated
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small chunks
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons ice water, plus more if needed

• Directions

  To make the pastry: combine the flour, sugar, salt, and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix with a pastry blender or your hands until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg yolk and pour in the ice water; work it in to bind the dough until it holds together without being too wet or sticky. Squeeze a small amount together, if it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 teaspoon at a time. Form the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

  Filling:

  • 4 large ripe peaches, pitted and sliced                   
  • 1 pint fresh blueberries                                          
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced                                                 
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
  • I used 2 peaches, about 1 cup of raspberries and 1/2 of each of the remaining ingredients for 1/3 the pastry recipe.

  Glaze:

  • 1 large egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • To make the filling: combine the peaches, blueberries, lemon juice, sugar, and flour in a large mixing bowl. Toss the mixture gently to coat the fruit.
  • Sprinkle the counter and a rolling pin lightly with flour. Roll the dough out, about 1/4-inch thick; it doesn't have to be perfect, free-form is the look you want for this rustic tart. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured pizza paddle (or rimmed baking sheet). Spoon the fruit mixture into the center of the dough, leaving a 2-inch border all around; brush the border with the egg wash. Lift the edge of crust over the filling, leaving the fruit exposed in center. Gently fold and pinch the dough to seal any cracks. Brush the crust with the remaining egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake the crostata 450 degrees for 15 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 350 and continue to bake another 20 to  30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and fruit is bubbly and tender. Slide a pizza paddle under the tart to remove it from the oven if using a pizza stone or just remove pan from oven to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream.

  * I added about 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to the fruit mixture.  Feel free to add cinnamon or nutmeg.  

  Here is an idea for using plums instead of peaches.  Experiment with various fruits and berries.

  
  
• 1 1/2 pounds plums, halved, pitted, each half cut into 6 slices