Freeform Summer Fruit Tart

Name: Freeform Summer Fruit Tart
Yield: Serves 6 (Makes one 8-inch tart)
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups, unbleached all-purpose flour (7 1/2 ounces), plus additional for work surface; 1/2 teaspoon, table salt; 10 tablespoons, unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks), cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes; 3 - 6 tablespoons, water (ice cold); 1 pound, peaches, nectarines, apricots, or plums; 1 cup, berries (about 1/2 dry pint); 3-5 tablespoons, granulated sugar; 1 tablespoon, granulated sugar for sprinkling

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Appears in Cook's Illustrated July/August 2004, America's Test Kitchen TV

Desserts or Baked Goods

Few things are better than a summer fruit pie, but that takes time and skill. We wanted an easy recipe with a short list of ingredients that would produce an extra-flaky crust.

SERVES6 (Makes one 8-inch tart)

TIME2¼ hours, plus 1 hour chilling and 30 minutes cooling

has video

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

We developed our free-form tart recipe as a quick alternative to pie. For the flakiest pastry, we turned to a French technique in pastry making called fraisage, in which the dough is smeared with the heel of your hand, spreading the butter ...

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