Strawberry-Rhubarb Tart with Flaky Tart Crust and Shamey's Crisp Topping

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB TART WITH
FLAKY TART CRUST AND SHAMEY'S CRISP TOPPING

"When Frank was growing up, there was an annual backyard party given by his neighbors. "It was the kind of event where you were sure to see people you hadn't seen since the same party the year before. And that you wouldn't see again until next year's party." Frank particularly looked forward to the strawberry-rhubarb crisp brought every year by a woman named Shamey. Shamey gave Frank the recipe from which he created this tart."

1 pint strawberries, stems removed and berries cut in quarters
1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, rinsed, leafy ends removed, and cut into 1/2-inch slices; or tart apples, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 par-baked Flaky Tart Crust (recipe follows)
1 recipe Shamey's Crisp Topping (recipe follows)

Position your oven racks so that one is in the center, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Toss the strawberries, rhubarb, flour, sugar, and cinnamon together in a big bowl. Dump this mixture into your par-baked tart shell and spread it out evenly. Using your fingers, sprinkle Shamey's topping over the fruit, taking care to cover its entire surface area, especially around the edges.

Place the tart on the center rack in the oven, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until you see fruit juices bubbling up through the topping and down around the sides of the tart. You may want to place a baking sheet under the tart to catch any spilled juices.
Remove the tart from the oven, and set it on a wire rack to cool slightly.

To remove the tart from the pan, rest it on a wide can. Make sure the tart is steady and balanced, then slide the outside ring of pan down off the tart. Move the tart to your work surface, and slide the tart off the pan bottom onto a rimless serving dish or cutting board. We love this tart fresh from the oven, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

FLAKY TART CRUST
Makes enough for two 9-inch tart crusts, one for now and one to freeze for later

"The fat in our tart dough is mostly butter with a little shortening. Many people think that an all-butter crust is the goal. But even Julia Child, America's foremost champion of butter, recommends making crusts with a combination of butter and shortening. Butter for its inimitable flavor, and shortening because that's what makes a crust flaky.

We call for butter to be cut into 1/4-inch cubes to make tart dough. The truth is, you only need to cut it that small if you're making crust by hand. If you're using a food processor, the whirling metal blade works so well to cut up the butter that you can get away with roughly chopping it into slabs.

Once you have the food processor out (if you're using one) and the counters all floured up, we think it's a great idea to make as much dough as you'll use for the next 2 months. But don't make the mistake of doubling the recipe. Make a batch of dough, and then make it again. And again. Making dough in small batches is key. When you make crust dough in bigger batches, you have to work it more, to cut the butter into the flour and then to work the dough into a ball. Working dough is bad. Overworking dough is a crust crime."

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
5 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
A small glass of ice water
1 9-inch tart pan (with fluted edges and removable bottom)

Dump the flour, sugar, and salt into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, and pulse a couple of times to make sure the salt is distributed evenly throughout the flour.

Add the butter and the shortening all at once, and pulse five to ten times, until the mixture forms little balls, like moist crumbs, and no chunks of butter or shortening remain. You must pulse, not run, the food processor. The worst thing that could happen at this stage of the crust-making game would be for the flours and fats to come together completely into a paste.

Remove the blade from the food processor, and dump the crumbs into a big bowl. Sprinkle a tablespoon of ice water over the surface of the crumbs. Repeat with 3 more tablespoons of ice water.

Use your hands or a wooden spoon to bring the dough together. Add more water if you have to, 1 tablespoon at a time. The dough should be just past crumbly and just barely coming together. You don't want it to be so wet that it sticks together or turns sticky-white in color.

Cut the dough in half, press each of the halves into a disk, and wrap the disks in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out.

If you are par-baking or prebaking your crust, position your oven racks so that one is in the center, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out one disk of dough to 3/8-inch thick. Fit the dough into your tart pan.

FOR A PREPARED CRUST:
Refrigerate the dough that has been fitted into a tart pan until you're ready to use it.

FOR A PAR-BAKED CRUST:
Prick holes in the tart dough with the tines of a fork. Line the bed of the tart with parchment paper or aluminum foil, and weigh it down with pie weights or dried beans. Place the tart shell on the center rack in the oven, and bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove the tart shell from the oven, and remove the paper and weights from the pan. Return the tart shell to the oven, and bake it for another 5 minutes, until the bed of the tart shell appears dry. Remove the tart shell from the oven, and set it on a wire rack to cool.

FOR A PREBAKED CRUST:
Follow the instructions for the par-baked crust, but increase the second baking time to 15-18 minutes, or until the tart shell is golden brown all over.

SHAMEY'S CRISP TOPPING
Makes about 2 cups (enough for a one 9-inch tart)

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 ounces (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped

Dump the flour and the brown sugar into the bowl of the food processor fitted with a metal blade, and pulse until they're just integrated. Add the butter all at once, and use the pulse button to cut butter into flour. Stop pulsing when mixture is the texture of moist crumbs.

Remove the blade from the food processor, and dump the crumbs into a big bowl. Add the oats and nuts. Work them into the crumbs with your fingers until the topping is stuck together in big clumps. It should not be one whole ball of dough but more like.... well, like crisp topping. Only not cooked.

Makes one 9-inch tart
Used by permission to Recipelink.com from Random House
Source: Once Upon a Tart by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau