French Tarts to Impress Guests – But Beware of Impersonators!

Imagine a Tour de France by way of the best French tarts. Imbibing along the way, all the regional specialities you can wrap your mouth around. It will be a satisfying, and dare I say, a fattening endeavour.

I didn’t have to travel anywhere to down another French tart on the weekend. My friends came for dinner – and brought half of it with them.

The vital half, some might say. I say it often – just call me a French tart. (Or a bakery trollop.) My pastry passion knows no bounds.

French Tarts: The Perfect Visiting Card

You can bank on a French woman with any ‘classe‘ to produce a classy cake for dessert. And this one was a French tart extraordinaire.

Greeting Audrey at the door of my apartment building, my eyes boggle. Even in the dark, I can make out the fantastic concoction of creamy berry fruits piled upon her tart offering – a visual splendour of white, red and purple fruit.

“Oh my!” I gasp … The whole building was probably in collective drooling as we came upstairs, the tart wafting its wonders along the way.

A Tart by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

I still didn’t know the name of this tart. In other words, we hadn’t been formally introduced … But as Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Well, the same goes for this tart. It doesn’t really matter the name – it just looks yum … But then again, it does matter.

The French attach a lot of regional pride to such creations. They are part of the local terroir.

The tarte aux fruits rouges – as it turns out – seems like a very Parisian tart to me. This one’s a bit of a hybrid – a twist on the classic fruit tart, which typically comes filled with lashings of crème pâtissière. Instead, it has a mix of mascarpone and crème fraîche.

This is such a great party dress dessert. You can match the colours with your outfit, and it’s very exuberant … the life of the party! Plus, it’s very easy to make! Fruit, pastry, mascarpone, cream. Voilà!

A Bit (e) of Tart Culture 

The beautiful creation takes pride of place in the fridge for a couple of agonising hours of anticipation. A bouquet of berry fruits – raspberries, blueberries and blackberries – in a bed of mascarpone and cream. That, perched upon a biscuity base.

Audrey, Queen of French tarts, tells me she used this recipe from food influencer Hervé Cuisine. Though opting for a shortcrust instead of a ground almond-based pastry, and replacing the vanilla sugar with real vanilla …

Good move, I say to the latter. Though I do like the idea of an almond’y base. In all honesty, it is a total cholesterol attack. Delicious. Divine. A big dose of bad cholesterol. An LDL hit like no other. All things in moderation … (and some rarely for me).

Personally, I find the amount of mascarpone and cream a little overdone. But that’s because I have a low fat tolerance – it’s not a criticism.

French Tart Cholesterol Hit

I know, I can hear you saying, “What, you are the French tart … How can you have a low French pastry fat tolerance.”

Well, my hereditary cholesterol is a fact. It’s a juggling act. And I live in the land of culinary paradoxes – the French exception – where people down these things in copious amounts while remaining healthy. So I’m trying to join them.

When I try mimicking Audrey’s tart, I may put half the amount of creamy substances – and favour more fruit. Or use a reduced-fat crème fraîche. I know, some will see me as a charlatan for such ideas.

“So, you are going to take the tart out of the tart? What’s the point?” Nah, just a little bit of fat. I like adapting recipes to make them healthier – especially if I can do so without sacrificing the taste.

That’s something that is becoming even more important with the plummeting quality of pastries at French patisseries that I have written about.

Tour de France by Tart

Now, about that Tour de France by tart. That single work of art – or t(art) … a tart chef-d’oeuvre that came to dinner, got me thinking about just how many such wonders exist around France. It’s an exhausting mental trip alone.

There are hundreds of these cherished French tarts – du terroir. All belong to a specific place and have culinary roots going back sometimes hundreds of years.

From the Tarte tropézienne, which is more of a cream-filled brioche. To the famous Tarte Tatin – such a personal favourite from way back, it deserves a post of its own. And I will come back to that.

But for picturesque beauties, these five tarts truly, um, take the cake!

Five of the Best French Tarts

• Tarte aux Fruits Rouges

  Try this one from a frozen food delivery company. Admittedly, while I prefer fresh, I think this recipe is really simple and neat. And you don’t have to use the frozen pastry and fruits when fresh ones are available. Personally, I find frozen berries freeze well. That said, with fruit taking such a central role in this tart, height-of-summer flavours – such as those in Audrey’s creation – will never be matched.

• Tarte à La Praline

  

  The pink praline tart is a Lyon specialty from the Rhône region’s capital of gastronomy. Here, on Lyon Tourism’s website, the French-born pastry chef Sébastien Bouillet shows how to make one in a video. For French speakers only – but the ingredients and method are there, too, easily translatable to your language. Actually, the tourism office does it for you on this link. The desert evolved from the 19th-century praline-topped brioche, the gâteau de Saint-Genix. The tart version is a concoction of almond meal, butter and sugar in a rich crust scattered with candied almonds. You can buy them at Bouillet’s boutiques in Lyon and Tokyo!

• Tarte aux Pommes

  Several French regions have them, in different forms, from Normandy to the Loire Valley. The latter is home to the famous upside-down apple tart, Tarte à Tatin, which again, I will come to in another post. For now, try this classic Tarte Normande – a circular swirl of apple slices, cut in quarters. My friend, Anne-Marie, does a very simple take on this. Simple and light! No cream, just the apple slices arranged in the pastry on a thin bed of stewed apple … Then baked for 20 minutes. It’s the quickest dessert I’ve ever seen whipped up. And a visual delight. You can’t go wrong, as they say.

• Tarte au Citron

  With or without meringue, the tarte au citron is a total French classic, and way up there on the hit list of all-time favourites … Possibly, at the top. It’s easy to make. Try this recipe for a tangy meringuée version. And I will come back to it as it deserves a post of its own.

  

• Tarte aux Myrtilles

  I go weak at the knees thinking of Alsace’s fruity tarts. One of the best, la tarte aux myrtilles, is a big blueberry yum! For the Alsace newspaper, DNA, it’s the “dessert emblématique des Vosges”.Again, it’s an easy recipe. It’s the fruit that counts. And that’s the flavour that comes through the most.

  The blueberries are thrown into the biscuity crust and topped with a light “nappe” – a coating – of caster sugar, eggs, and runny cream. Note that the cream used here is crème liquide – single cream – so, not crème fraîche.