Peach Preserve Tart

We found this tart’s crust in Sarah Marshall’s Preservation Pantry, and we’re pretty excited about it. Today, we have used it for a simple peach preserve tart that we’ll eat at the end of staff lunch. But with the sweet masa/cornmeal crust, we’re thinking it may be the perfect crust for a chocolate tart inspired by Mexican chocolate—a little spicy, a little salty, with plenty of delicious spices to work against the cookie-like quality of this crust.

But today? Peaches.

It’s that time of year when we’re rooting through the back of our pantries to see what canned goodies we still have left from last year’s canning adventures. We found this quart of Hollmeyer Orchards’ peaches we stashed away last summer and couldn’t resist.

You can use any old preserves or jam for this recipe. You could use grape or raspberry or strawberry or or or. Just don’t use jelly. Jelly is too thin. You have to use prepared fruits that kept all of the fruit in the mix. But the real beauty of this recipe is how quickly it comes together. The dough has to chill for at least an hour, but total cook time is 17-18 minutes.

 

Ingredients

for dough
4 eggs, divided
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup masa harina
½ cup cornmeal (we used CHF fine ground)
¼ tsp table salt (use a ½ tsp if you’re using kosher)
2 sticks salted butter, room temp
1 cup sugar

for filling
3½ cups fruit preserve or jam of your choosing

Directions

Preparing the pastry

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together flour, masa harina, cornmeal, and salt. Then set aside.

Prepare eggs by cracking two whole eggs into a bowl. Separate the other two eggs, reserving the egg whites to brush on the tart crust prior to cooking. Add separated egg yolks to the two whole eggs and beat lightly.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Once combined and fluffy, add the whole eggs and two yolks and mix together until fully combined.

Add in the dry mix in thirds, mixing together between each addition until the dough comes together in a bowl. This dough is a bit soft/gooey. Wrap it in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour. (this could be made a head by a day or two).

Putting it together

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Our first attempt at this, we tried to roll the dough out, but this dough is not meant for that. It doesn’t hold together in a large sheet. It’s meant to be squished into the tart pan by hand. But rolling it out first helped us get to the right thickness and also helped us see that there would be leftover dough for our 11” tart pan. (We wrapped that up and tossed it in the freezer for a future tart in a pinch.)

Once the crust is properly smooshed into the tart pan, brush the entire crust with reserved egg whites. Put in oven on a baking sheet on the center rack of the oven. Cook for 12 minutes.

Remove from oven and fill with preserves, spreading it out evenly within the tart crust. Put it back in the oven and cook for at least 5 more minutes. The filling should be bubbling gently and the edges of the crust should be lightly goldened (browned is probably too far).

Allow tart to cool and set for at least 15 minutes before serving.