Blueberry Sky Tart

We don’t mean to, but we seem to be bouncing from event to event these days with barely time to think of just plain ol’ regular posts here on Belly-Timber. This horrendously busy week is no exception. I’ve got a few starts kicking around here somewhere, but the only thing we’ve time to finish is our entry for this month’s Sugar High Friday.

I’m a bit clueless when it comes to tarts. Mention tarts, and I immediately think of something rectangular you pop into the toaster, or of something with high heels, sequins, and a half-guzzled bottle of Boones Farm Strawberry Hill. Maybe it’s my lack of tart pan in the kitchen, but then again, it could be the beeline I make for chocolate any time I’m near a dessert tray. Either way, tarts just aren’t on my usual culinary radar.

So, I left the initial tart brainstorming entirely up to Chopper Dave and pondered mundane things, like would the local gourmet store have tart pans that don’t cost a bundle, and would this dessert be pretty, dammit?

Turns out we didn’t need a tart pan. Chopper Dave’s been on this meringue kick, and it’s yet to end. This incarnation: Meringue tart crust.

Our choice for fruit: blueberries. I had this brilliantly silly notion that we’d make the whole thing blue. Blue-tinted meringue, blueberries… (Okay, they’re purple, but hey, work with me here.) The idea: A cloud of blue meringue, and on top of the berries, another cloud, this one silver and puffy and all of spun sugar. On our trip to the grocery store, after I relented and agreed to expand the color palate, we found the final element for our firmament: Star fruit. The blueberry sky tart was ready for construction.

Of course first we had to endure a few near disasters. Meringue, we learned the hard way, does not do well inside tart pans (yes, the local gourmet store had ‘em). Chopper’s second attempt worked much better: He baked a tart-sized meringue cookie, then just collapsed the middle to make a bowl for the fruit.

Near disaster number two wasn’t so bad or so disastrous, but it did involve the discovery that one should be prepared for flying hot things when one is attempting to photograph spinning sugar. Also, one should keep the dog away.

Two final key points of instruction:

When placing spun sugar on top of blueberry filling, do wait till the filling has cooled or the spun sugar will be pretty for all of about three minutes.

Also, it helps if you’ve charged your camera’s batteries in recent history.

(Quick panic, then, spun sugar yanked off of hot berry filling, tart tossed in fridge, batteries thrown in charger, second cloud of spun sugar made and set aside. Wait, wait, wait, hope the day’s light doesn’t fade because photographing desserts at night sucks rocks, and one hour later…)

“You can eat this one,” Chopper Dave says, setting down a fork. “No dairy.”

I check the playback feature on my camera, decide I’ve got some decent shots, then indulge myself in a bite of blueberry sky tart.

One bite, and holy crap, they don’t call it Sugar High Friday for nothing. And here I thought last month’s Sweet Fleet was over the top. This one’s stratospheric. Chopper Dave puts it on a dessert menu? Dentists will picket.

But hey, it’s pretty, and I’m all about pretty when it comes to desserts.

Excuse me. I’m going to go brush my teeth now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 16th, 2005 at 10:48 pm and is filed under food blogging events, sugar high friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.