Tart

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Tart
Raspberry tart.jpg
Raspberry tart
Main ingredients Pastry crust (usually shortcrust pastry)
VariationsSweet tarts, savoury tarts

A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with custard. Tartlet refers to a miniature tart; an example would be egg tarts. The categories of "tart", "flan", "quiche", and "pie" overlap, with no sharp distinctions.

Contents

History

Apple tart Akashi City Museum of Culture Hyogo pref Japan13s.jpg
Apple tart

The French word tarte can be translated to mean either pie or tart, as both are mainly the same except a pie usually covers the filling in pastry, while flans and tarts leave it open. [1]

Tarts are thought to have either come from a tradition of layering food or to be a product of Medieval pie making. Enriched dough (i.e. shortcrust) is thought to have been first commonly used in 1550, approximately 200 years after pies. In this period, they were viewed as high-cuisine, popular with nobility, in contrast to the view of a commoner's pie. While originally savory, with meat fillings, culinary tastes led to sweet tarts prevailing, filling tarts instead with fruit and custard. [2] Early medieval tarts generally had meat fillings, but later ones were often based on fruit and custard. [3]

An early tart was the Italian crostata, dating to at least the mid-15th century. It has been described as a "rustic free-form version of an open fruit tart". [4]

Description

Lemon meringue tarts 00 Lemon Meringue Tarts.jpg
Lemon meringue tarts

Tarts are typically free-standing with firm pastry base consisting of dough, itself made of flour, thick filling, and perpendicular sides while pies may have softer pastry, looser filling, and sloped sides, necessitating service from the pie plate. [5] [6] [7]

Varieties

There are many types of tarts, with popular varieties including Treacle tart, meringue tart, tarte tatin and Bakewell tart. A jam tart uses jam in place of fresh fruit.

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down tart, of apples, other fruit, or onions.

Savoury tarts include quiche, a family of savoury tarts with a mostly custard filling; German Zwiebelkuchen and Alsace Tarte à l'oignon or Zewelwaï [8] (onion tarts), and Swiss cheese tart made from Gruyère.

See also

Notes

  1. Davidson: s.v. 'tart'
  2. "Tarts, a History". Joe Pastry. 20 July 2009. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
  3. Davidson: s.v. 'tart'
  4. Corley: 2011. Page 129.
  5. "Pie or Tart: What's the Difference" . Retrieved 2015-03-15.
  6. "Pie vs. Tart: What's the Difference?" . Retrieved 2015-03-15.
  7. "About Tarts". iFood.tv. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
  8. David, pp. 184–185

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shortcrust pastry</span> Base used for a tart, quiche or pie

Shortcrust is a type of pastry often used for the base of a tart, quiche, pie, or flan. Shortcrust pastry can be used to make both sweet and savory pies such as apple pie, quiche, lemon meringue or chicken pie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Custard</span> Semi-solid cooked mixture of milk and egg

Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce to the thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used in custard desserts or dessert sauces and typically include sugar and vanilla; however, savory custards are also found, e.g., in quiche.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pastry</span> Various baked products made of dough

Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water, and shortening that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. The word "pastries" suggests many kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder, and eggs. Small tarts and other sweet baked products are called pastries as a synecdoche. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pie</span> Baked, filled pastry

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apple pie</span> Dessert pie made with apples

An apple pie is a fruit pie in which the principal filling is apples. Apple pie is often served with whipped cream, ice cream, custard or cheddar cheese. It is generally double-crusted, with pastry both above and below the filling; the upper crust may be solid or latticed. The bottom crust may be baked separately ("blind") to prevent it from getting soggy. Deep-dish apple pie often has a top crust only. Tarte Tatin is baked with the crust on top, but served with it on the bottom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quiche</span> French savoury custard tart

Quiche is a French tart consisting of pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche Lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, warm or cold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarte Tatin</span> Caramelised fruit tart

The tarte Tatin, named after the Tatin sisters who invented it and served it in their hotel as its signature dish, is a pastry in which the fruit is caramelized in butter and sugar before the tart is baked. It originated in France but has spread to other countries over the years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apple cake</span> Cakes made with apples

Apple cakes are cakes in which apples feature as a main flavour and ingredient. Such cakes incorporate apples in a variety of forms, including diced, pureed, or stewed, and can include common additions like raisins, nuts, and 'sweet' spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg. They are a common and popular dessert worldwide, thanks to millennia of apple cultivation in Asia and Europe, and their widespread introduction and propagation throughout the Americas during the Columbian Exchange and colonisation. As a result, apple desserts, including cakes, have a huge number of variations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turnover (food)</span> Pastry with a filling on a single piece of dough which has been folded over and sealed

A turnover is a type of pastry made by placing a filling on a piece of dough, folding the dough over, sealing it, and then baking it. Turnovers can be sweet or savoury and are often made as a sort of portable meal or dessert. They are often eaten for breakfast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bacon and egg pie</span> Savoury pie

The bacon and egg pie is a savoury pie consisting of a crust containing bacon, egg and sometimes onion, mushrooms, bell peppers, peas, tomato, fresh herbs and cheese. It is popular in New Zealand. However, bacon and egg pie originated during the Middle Ages in Cornwall and is still a popular pie cooked in Cornish homes today. Bacon and egg pie may be served with ketchup, which can be combined with Worcestershire sauce and drizzled over the filling before the pie is baked and some versions have a rising agent such as baking powder mixed into the egg to make a fluffier filling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Custard tart</span> Baked dessert consisting of an egg custard-filled pastry crust

Custard tarts or flan pâtissier/parisien are a baked pastry consisting of an outer pastry crust filled with egg custard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemon tart</span> Pastry dessert dish with lemon flavored filling

A lemon tart is a dessert dish, a variety of tart. It has a pastry shell with a lemon flavored filling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flan (pie)</span> British tart with egg-based filling

A flan, in British cuisine, is an egg-based dish with an open, rimmed pastry or sponge base containing a sweet or savoury filling. Examples are bacon and egg flan and custard tart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wähe</span> Swiss type of tart

Wähe is a baked dish typical of Swiss and Alemannic (German) cuisine. A wähe consists of a casing and a topping of a custard enveloping either fruit, vegetables or cheese. The custard and fruits or vegetables are baked together. The preparation is thus very similar to that of the French quiche or tarte.

References