What makes a tart, a tart? It’s like an open-faced dessert with a cup at the bottom – pastry crust and with a filling that is either sweet or savoury that makes the best of local specialities – fruits, jams, creams, custards and even curd. Different countries have their own versions of the tart that is always baked, at least the buttery crust is and they go by different names as well. Here’s a list of some of the tastiest tarts in the world.
Froget the easy peasy lemon cake recipe and bring your attention to the French meringue tart. This tart is perhaps the easiest meringue out of the trio that is the easiest to master and the Meringue tart uses them aplenty, although Swiss and Italian meringue might also be used in some recipes. A baked buttery pastry shell is filled with flavoured curd – lemon, lime or blueberry on top of which the light, crisp meringues are piped or spread and then baked again for them to brown. Sometimes instead of the typical pastry shell, meringue batter might also be used to make the tart shell.
A Canadian favourite, the butter tart has small tart shells, shallow or deep, which are filled with a mixture made with walnuts, eggs, brown sugar, butter, and white vinegar and baked. The early 1900s recipe also included raisins and currants in the filling and it's hard to say who introduced this tart. Some link it to the Scots, some to the slaves and some say it evolved from the local sugar pie. Butter tarts differ in their colour depending on the shade of the brown sugar and depending on how long the tart is baked the filling can be runny or thick.
The name gives away the origin of the tart, for treacle is something that is extensively used in British cuisine. The shortcrust pastry has a filling made with sugar syrup, breadcrumbs, lemon juice and spices – ginger cinnamon and cloves. Food historians say the use of breadcrumbs was a means to use up leftover bread and mostly the peasants made these because treacle was a cheap sweetener. Treacle tart is best eaten with a dollop of clotted cream and this tart has local variations with dried fruits, eggs and even apples used in combination with the other ingredients.
Hailing from France's Normandy, a region famous for its apples and apple liqueur, this tart has a neat arrangement of sliced apples on top. The tart has a shortcrust pastry or pâte brisée with a filling of almond frangipane cream. The apples arranged over the frangipane brown nicely when baked with the tart. It's enjoyed warm with a dollop of crème fraîche on the side.
A little on the savoury side, Pastel de feijão is a bean tart from Portugal’s Torres Vedras city, that was first made sometime in the 1800s. It has a pastry base that has a filling of white beans mixed with an almond meal and dusted with powdered sugar. Different areas have different specialities where the white beans are also turned into a sweet jam or red kidney beans are used instead. The family of Joaquina Rodrigues safeguard the original recipe of the “bean cake” which is the signature tart of this Portuguese city.
Coming in both sweet and savoury versions, Wähe is a tart from Switzerland that uses seasonal fruits – apples, plums, apricots and the savoury version usually is made like the French quiche. Wähe is said to have been made as a way to use leftover dough from bread making and was considered a peasant’s dish in the past. Now they are popular throughout the country and eaten during fasting and religious observances or just like that.
The Greeks love their fruit and Pasta flora uses mostly fruit as its filling using different fruit jams (raspberry, apricot, strawberry) filled in a shortcrust buttery pastry. It’s either baked as tartlets or as a large tart that is sliced and eaten post baking. Other European countries have their versions of the Pasta flora and South America in particular Argentina where it's also called Pastaflora.
Quite similar to the Bakewell tart with a pastry crust and a filling of cherry jam followed by frangipane that is made with butter, sugar, eggs, and ground almonds. The pastry crust is first baked, then the jam is spread and the frangipane layer is added to fill to the brim. The top is often decorated with slivered almonds and baked. It is often garnished with a single cherry to symbolize the cherry jam used in the tart.