a simple fruit tart ala mode

As a thank you to "the boys" for helping us out in prepping and cooking our last event we decided to make them an ultimate "Delish" meal! We ended our delicious endeavor with a wonderful simple fruit tart ala mode. Our tart crust was extremely simple and resembled a buttery flaky shortbread cookie. A little flour, butter, sugar, and eggs, and wallah! We had a decadent pie crust. Our recipe is just too great to publicize. Afterall every great chef has their share of secret recipes that we shall take to the grave, right?! I brushed the perimeter of the crust with simple egg white so they would turn a beautiful golden brown in the oven. Bananas and rasberries (you can use whatever fruit happens to be on sale at the store or farmer's market) were our pick of fruit as one may use almost any fruit to top this tart. We sliced bananas very thin and and layered them right on top of the crust. Most fruit tarts have a sort of custard layer between the crust and fruit however the banana added a great consistency and tied the different layers together very well, thus no need for a custard. I've never been a real big fan of custards anyway. Then we topped the banana with rasberries and sprinkled powdered sugar on top for added bite of sweetness and a beautiful snow powdery finish! We sliced the cake as it was still warm out of the oven and accompanied each plate with a nice sized dallop of french vanilla ice cream! I wish we could say the ice cream was homemade but that's another endeavor for another day! The only thing I think we could have done differently was to bake the crust with a weight (bag of unbaked beans or something) to keep the surface of the crust flat before plating the fruit. I made the exact same fruit tart a few days later (I was on a fruit tart frenzy for a week) but used blueberries instead of rasberries. The only downside I noticed were that the blueberries tended to roll around everywhere. On the plate, off the plate, off the table, and onto the floor when serving! This immediately reminded me of an old childhood song "On Top of Spaghetti". This is when I think a layer of custard would be useful to act as the glue to keep the smooth rolly polly blueberries in place! Perhaps a banana infused custard? I also think these tarts would be a wonderful delight as small little bite sized tarts. Sweet, simple, and delicate for a lady's afternoon tea or perhaps even a baby shower. Hmmm...

made with love,

jas