Help me make dried fruit tart.

Cafe Society
1

Although I am a competent cook, I am not an expert baker/dessert maker (and google base is failing me on this one).

This is what I have:

Graham crackers and butter (for a cheesecake type crust)

Pudding (the one in a box, I could make it from scratch)

Dried figs, apples and apricots.

I could buy anything else, of course.

This is what I want:

A tart (if that is the right name). You can see where I am going with this. A crust with a custard and dried fruit on top.

Do I need to bake the crust? How?

Do I need to cook the dried fruits some how? Top them with something?

I can’t imagine good things happening to the pudding in the oven. How do I put this together?

I would really like to avoid a real pastry crust.

2

[QUOTE=Sapo]
Although I am a competent cook, I am not an expert baker/dessert maker (and google base is failing me on this one).

This is what I have:

Graham crackers and butter (for a cheesecake type crust)

Pudding (the one in a box, I could make it from scratch)

Dried figs, apples and apricots.

I could buy anything else, of course.

This is what I want:

A tart (if that is the right name). You can see where I am going with this. A crust with a custard and dried fruit on top.

Do I need to bake the crust? How?

Do I need to cook the dried fruits some how? Top them with something?

I can’t imagine good things happening to the pudding in the oven. How do I put this together?

I would really like to avoid a real pastry crust.
[/QUOTE]

Just a WAG but I imagine if you did a graham cracker crust you’d bake that separately before adding the other ingredients. Here’s one recipe: http://southernfood.about.com/cs/pierecipes/ht/graham_crust.htm

I’ve made a linzer torte which used dried apricots as an ingredients (OK, I know authentic linzers have raspberries) and those, I simmered in juice until the liquid was absorbed. I’d imagine you could do something with that - perhaps you’d want to puree the fruit afterward (my recipe called for that, but it was a single fruit; your mixture might not work so well as a puree). Look for some sort of dried fruit compote recipe such as this: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_18849,00.html

Dang, this is starting to sound tasty. What time is dinner? :slight_smile:

3

Oh, and my advice for assembly:
Prepare, bake and cool crust
Prepare and cool fruit mixture and drain any excess liquid
Prepare pudding. Add to crust. Let set. Add fruit.

Consider adding fruit at serving time instead of preassembly in case its liquid makes the pudding or the crust runny.

Get out a spoon and make it allllll disappear.

4

Thanks. The graham crust recipe doesn’t mention anything about covering the crust when baking, Is that correct? No foil, no weight on top?

Dinner is at 7. I am making “callos” (spanish style tripe with chorizo and chickpeas) :wink:

5

No, you don’t need to weight graham cracker crusts. You do that to pastry crusts because it helps prevent them from bubbling and warping while baking. Since a cracker crust doesn’t create pockets of steam like a pastry one does, you don’t need to worry about the bubbling.