Sweeeeeet!

When summer fruits are at their perfect peak, we usually just eat them plain for dessert. There is nothing more delicious than ripe, seasonal fruit. The berries are so juicy that most of my clothes have berry stains on them and I'm continually having to wipe nectarine juice off my elbows. Why mess with perfection?

But, every now and then, I do make a fancier dessert - like this little tart that I made because my Fairy Godson was in town. I had some DuFour pastry dough left over from the tomato tart, and it needed eating; because DuFour uses no preservatives, their pastry only lasts a day or two in the fridge. Best to use it up quickly.

If you are looking for a summer dessert that looks like you gave it serious effort when you really didn't, this is the "recipe" for you. 

All you do is lay out the pastry on parchment paper on a baking tray; with a sharp knife incise a line about 3/4 of an inch in from the edges but not cutting all the way through; lay down slices of fruit in some sort of decorative pattern inside the incised line; brush the edges outside the incised line with egg wash (beaten egg); brush the fruit with a little melted fruit jelly (I used blackberry in this case); and sprinkle a tiny bit of coarse sugar over the egg washed parts. Into the oven for 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees F and what emerges looks like a pro had a hand in it when it was really just little ol' you.

The crust outside the incised line rises to hug the fruit and browns to a rich mahogany. The bottom crust, thanks to the buttery nature of DuFour pastry, stays wonderfully flaky and light. The fruit is ever-so-slightly sweeter than nature intended and the whole thing glistens. 

I had thought to serve it with a little whipped cream on a pretty plate; this one didn't even make it off the parchment paper onto a serving platter - we cut it up and ate it out of hand, standing up around the kitchen counter. 

My Beloved pronounced it, in the current argot of the youth, to be "Sweeeeet!"