Drowned Fruit Tart

Wotchers!

Back in January 2015, I introduce you all to Drowned Doughnuts, a wonderfully light and flavoursome dough that had the unusual method of being proved in water (hence the ‘drowned’). At the time I mentioned that I would be returning to the dough at some point, for use in another recipe, and so here we are.

Yes,  I know it’s been two years, but I’m rather bad (or should I say, very good) at getting distracted.

ANYHOO…

Drowned fruit tart is deliciously adaptable to whatever fruit you have to hand – the usual filling is stewed apples, but I happened to have some beautifully coral-coloured, stewed Warden pears in the freezer, so went with those. The quantity can be dictated either by what you have to hand or by the shape of your tin for, as can be seen in the picture, any excess dough can be made into the aforementioned doughnuts. With a small addendum to the original recipe.

Anecdote Deviation: I like to think that I know a bit about a few bits of baking, here and there, and can usually deduce how something has been put together, and frequently the general method. There’s a pub nearby that we like to eat at, and their bread game is ON POINT! The pizzas are hand thrown and baked to order, and each table is brought a basket of freshly-baked rolls as an appetiser. Nice! My daughter is obsessed with these rolls, and secretly so was I, although I played it cool.

These rolls are the softest, most pillowy balls of fresh-baked dough I have ever eaten. And, frustratingly, I couldn’t work out how this was achieved. My understanding of the best way of achieving soft rolls has been tweaked over the years as I have picked up snippets of information here and there, and until recently consisted of: mix dough with half milk, half water, brush baked rolls with milk when they come out of the oven and allow to cool in a clean cloth, thereby trapping the steam and softening the crust. Even crisp mixed-with-water-only rolls will soften after such treatment. What was nagging at me was the fact that the pub rolls were obviously baked to order and brought to the table hot from the oven and yet they were so soft, so tender – I couldn’t work out how it was done.

Each visit would be followed by experimentation of one or two batches only to get the thumbs down from my daughter, so on a recent visit I decided to be BRAZEN and when the server approached the table with the (now legendary) basket of hot rolls and the question “Can I get you anything to start?” I looked him straight in the eye and said “The recipe for these rolls, please!” I know. Shameless – but I was desperate!

Bless his heart, he was back 10 minutes later with a hand-written recipe from the chef. Eagerly I scanned the recipe for the magic touch. Did he add cream? Maybe the rolls contained lard, or margarine. Oooh! Oooh! Could it be milk powder!? No. The one thing that differed from a perfectly ordinary bread dough recipe, the magical touch that set these rolls apart from all other efforts was – the rolls were brushed with melted butter before baking.

I must confess to being more than a little skeptical – I was familiar with the technique of brushing hot loaves with butter AFTER baking, sure (popular in Russia, Ukraine, etc) – it makes loaves beautifully glossy and burnished – but before? Nevertheless I was prepared to give it a go and brushed over melted-but-cooled butter on the batch I whipped up the very next day. And they were perfect. I couldn’t get over how perfect they were, how pillowy, billowy soft. My daughter was overjoyed.

Which is why, when making the leftover dough in this recipe into balls (as opposed to cutting them out originally), I brushed them with melted butter before baking. They turned out fantastically soft (*points at photo* See! SEE how lovely they look!) and, tossed in caster sugar, hot from the oven, about as close to a guilt-free doughnut as you can get.

All of which leads me ramblingly to this point: you’re never too old a dog to learn a new trick.

ANYHOO….

The tart. The extra little touch for this tart, aside from using sweet, vanilla-scented dough in place of pastry, is the treatment after it emerges from the oven. You spoon – or in my case pipe (fewer stray splodges) – sweetened sour cream/creme fraiche between the dough strands, directly onto the fruit filling and allow it to cool. The cream slowly thickens to a cheesecake-like texture which goes fantastically well with the sharp, fruit filling and the sweet dough. I also brushed the edges of the tart with melted butter, to keep them soft. I used clarified butter, for a more even colour (milk solids might bake as darker spots).

And finally, you don’t HAVE to let the dough rise in water, it will still rise just fine in a bowl.

Drowned Fruit Tart

1 batch of Drowned Doughnuts dough, after the first rise
500g-1kg stewed fruit – cooled
300ml sour cream/low fat creme fraiche
50g-100g sugar to taste
clarified butter, melted and cooled
caster sugar (for the doughnuts)

• Grease and line a baking tin with parchment paper. Make sure it is deep enough to contain a decent layer of fruit filling. I used 500g of pears for the tart in the photo – on reflection, 1kg would have been even better.
• Roll out the risen dough to a thickness of 1-1.5cm. It will obviously rise during proving and baking, so you don’t want to start too thick and then end up with something less-than dainty emerging from the oven.
• Line the tin with the dough and allow any excess dough to drape over the sides.
• Spread in your fruit filling evenly.
• Trim the excess dough and re-roll the trimmings to make lattice strips. I opted for thin strips, twisted into ‘barley-sugar’ shapes.
• Lay the strips diagonally across the tart to form a diamond lattice. Dampen the edges of the dough and fold them down and over the ends of the lattice strips to keep them in place. Crimp the edges of the tart neatly.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
• Brush the edges of the tart and the lattice strips with melted, cooled butter. Allow to prove while the oven heats up.
• Bake until risen and golden. Depending on the size of your tart, this will be between 25-40 minutes.
• While the tart is baking, divide any remaining dough into 30g pieces and roll into balls. Set onto a lined baking sheet to prove.
• Mix sugar into the cream/creme fraiche to taste. I usually under-sweeten with just 50-60g of sugar. Spoon into a piping bag if liked.
• When the tart is baked, remove from the oven and fill the lattice spaces with the sweetened cream. Set aside to cool for 3-4 hours. Serve at room temperature.
• For the doughnuts: When risen, brush with cooled, melted butter and bake for around 15 minutes. Whilst hot, toss in caster sugar and set onto a wire rack to cool – or consume immediately, your call.