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Free Form Tarts and a Wow moment for La Tartine Gourmande

free form tart recipes :: pear and hazelnut tart :: onion tart

I never realized until I watched a French TV show that “free form tart” is a concept that does not exist in the French cuisine. Food blogger Pascale Weeks of C’est moi qui l’ai fait pointed out that fact in the episode. It is strange that never noticed it before. Although I have seen it many times, I never considered making a free form tart until now. I am planning to change that.

I learned that the key for a successful free form tart is to beautifully place the fruit pieces in a big circle and to gently fold the edges of the dough up. For a more sophisiticated look, pass a fluted pastry wheel on the dough before you fold it. As you can see, I became a fan of their rustic look and feel.

best fig tart by chez pim

It is not just for sweet tarts, you can go free form for savory tarts. Here are a few tasty free form tart recipes that you may want to bookmark:

You remember the TV show that inspired me to talk about free form tarts. It has a must-see segment where they followed Bea of La Tartine Gourmande as she worked on a food story. Her 8-minute segment starts at 2/3 of the show; so, unless you speak French, advance Envoyé Spécial – la suite until you hit 16 minutes. Bea wrote a wonderful post where she described, in English, the making of process of her TV segment. She was great on camera!

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+ top left photo: Tarte rustique aux poires et noisettes, sans moule by Pascale Weeks of C’est moi qui l’ai fait!

  • Celia
    April 7, 2010 at 13:03

    They look delicious! Indeed that’s right, French (like me!) don’t really cook free form tarts except maybe for small and individual tarts, when the pastry needs to be very thin : I used to cook individual apple tarts such like that, with very thin slices of apple, a bit of sugar and cinamon, served warm with a scope of vannilla ice cream : Mmmm !