Easter Tart

We went over to our friends' house on Saturday for an Easter party, which included a Peeps art contest and an egg hunt around the house for the kiddos. Little was a little to young to get the egg hunt part, but did a top-notch job of playing his part in our living art piece -- Peepzilla. He first picked off the Peeps lounging around on the landscape and moved on to banging on the buildings and swaying them around. It was a lot of fun. My contribution to the party (aside from the afternoon entertainment) was something that I've been aching to try -- a grapefruit tart. We have two bakeries in town that make their own versions of this seasonal treat, so after sampling both I decided to give it a try. 

I couldn't really find an exact recipe, so I decided to go to my favorite cookbook, The New Best Recipes by Cooks Illustrated, for inspiration. I settled on their recipe for pastry cream and sweet pastry dough for the shell and filling and surfed the internet a bit for instructions and photos on slicing and arranging grapefruit. The tart has several steps, but they were surprisingly easy and can be done ahead of time, so you don't have to spend all day in the kitchen. My food processor made the dough a breeze, and I found out (thanks to Cooks Illustrated) that the secret to a silky custard is straining it while hot through a fine-mesh sieve. Brilliant!

For this tart, I used four grapefruit: three ruby red and one pink for color variation. The pink grapefruit was definitely more tart, so it was a nice flavor contrast too. In order to get the fleshy slices, you have to peel and segment the fruit. Basically, you cut off either end down to the flesh and run a very sharp paring knife down the sides in curved slices to remove the skin and all of the pith (preserving as much flesh as possible). Once you remove all of the skin, you then segment the grapefruit according to the natural divisions. Run the knife along side one of the paper thin membranes to almost the core and then use the knife to sort of pop it out of the skin. Then, you move on to the next segment until the entire grapefruit is sliced. Oh, and don't forget to gently press the slices between two paper towels before placing on the tart -- you don't want vanilla custard soup from all of the extra juice. I practiced arranging the slices on a plate before actually topping the tart, which really helped the presentation. The only detail I left out was sprinkling coarsely chopped pistachios on top (a garnish used at St. Honore's bakery) because I ran out of time. I will opt for this next round though, because the bright green flesh of the pistachio nuts looks so pretty with the red grapefruit.

This particular recipe for the tart shell and cream called for a 9 1/2" tart pan with removable bottom. While the sweet pastry dough was sufficient for for the tart size, there was a lot more cream than I needed. I think next time, if I'm bringing this to a party, I'll make 1 1/2 times the amount of tart dough and use an 11" pan. The tart is ideally eaten within a few hours of preparation, so don't fill the shell until you're ready to serve (or leave the house). Due to time constraints, I filled the tart and topped with the grapefruit about an hour before we ended up leaving and stuck it in the refrigerator. It held up well, but started to get a little loose after sitting at room temperature for a few hours. Although Little was a little skeptical, the tart was delicious. I think I'll have to make another while the grapefruit are still juicy and sweet.


Tart Recap:
9 1/2" tart pan with removable bottom
1 recipe of Cooks Illustrated Sweet Pastry Dough
1 recipe of Cooks Illustrated Pastry Cream
4 grapefruit, peeled, segmented, and blotted dry
coarsely chopped pistachios for garnish (optional)