a tart by any other name

What's the difference between a pie and a tart? I'm sure there is a lovely scientific answer to this question, but I'm going to share my thoughts on the matter after baking several tarts this weekend. First, tart dough has more sugar in it to give it more flavor than pie dough and is rolled out more so it's thinner. Which makes the dough a heck of a lot harder to work with - patience is key here. Basically, tarts are like the stuck up, snobby girl you knew in high school while pies are the average, goody two-shoes girl.  I'm proud to be a pie girl, although I did have fun being a tart this weekend. Oops, I mean baking tarts.

See, even the pan is fancier. Look at those ridges around the sides. These pans are way more interesting than normal pie pans. Not only does the bottom come out so you can easily slide the tart off of it after baking, you also get to cut off the the excess dough by rolling over the top of the pan with a rolling pin. Yes, I'm easily amused.

This is a basic fruit tart. It starts with a blind baked crust, then it's filled halfway with pastry cream and topped with as much fruit as you can put on it. The fruit can be in any design that you choose. I call this my sectioned look. This weekend we have our first practical exam and have to make our own fruit tarts. I plan on bringing my A-game - this will be art on a tart.

Tangy lemon tarts are also popular. I brought home a version with cherries in it and my family had no problem scarfing it down.

Cobbler seems to be the opposite of a tart to me. It's like the messy little brother you hide from when you're the cool girl. But this peach and blackberry tart was quite good, even if it was quite messy.

We also made Linzer Torte. It's an Austrian dessert with a more crumbly crust and a fruit jam. It also usually has a lattice design on top, but we decided to go with streusel instead since the dough was so hard to work with. Chef mentioned that he uses this recipe to make cookies and I plan on adding that to my to-do list.

After eight hours of slaving away in a hot kitchen on Saturday, I spent a few more hours in my kitchen at home on Sunday morning making banana peanut butter cupcakes for my mom and aunts who came down for a visit. Delicious as always, and much more my speed than a fancy pants tart. Except this Saturday I'm tarting it up. I'll have pretty pictures to share and hopefully a good grade to go along with them!