A berry tart in under an hour
We could all use a fantastic tart recipe in our hip pockets. Tarts are a perfect festive end to any dinner party. If the thought of making homemade crust intimidates you, or if you just prefer not to take in so many fat calories densely packed into a sheet of pastry, stick with me.
The tart I'm talking about today uses a simple olive-oil cake as the base, which is then topped with fresh berries. I took inspiration from a fruit-topped sponge-cake, and turned the idea into a recipe that could be made start-to-finish in about an hour, and much of that time is baking or cooling. I whipped up a speedy orange-olive oil cake (and it's technically-speaking a quick-bread, but our secret!) and made that the base, which works well with either regular flour or most gluten-free flours I have tried.
I used a pie pan with a raised center, a worthy minimal investment if you do any amount of baking. Buy one and you'll find a thousand uses for it. But if you don't have the special pie mold, use a regular tart or pie pan, and your results will be equally delicious. To create the pretty filling, I tossed a couple of cups of berries in a little orange marmalade thinned with hot water. Place the syrupy berries on the cake — maybe take an extra minute or two to arrange them nicely for a bakery-made look — and sprinkle on some powdered sugar to serve.
The cake itself has a mere 1/3 cup of sugar in the recipe, letting the raspberry topping offer most of the sweetness. The result is a gorgeous dessert or afternoon tea accompaniment that feels more indulgent than it actually is.