Blueberries and strawberries are enhanced by floral notes of lavender in this berry lavender tart using a pâte sucrée crust. Even though summer is still a whole quarter away, you can still have a taste of it with this recipe!
I never used to like berries when I was younger. First of all, there aren’t a lot of berry options in the Philippines where I grew up. And even if you find them, they’re likely very expensive. The only berry I knew about were strawberries, but only because they had strawberry-flavored medicine. Because I always associated strawberries with medicine, it took a long time for me to try the actual fruit once I got to America. And when I started baking, I eventually grew more appreciation for berries in general and try to bake with them more often.
Choice of berries
Okay, real talk: to be honest, I didn’t know how this berry lavender tart recipe was going to go when I started testing it. Ideally, I would have chosen a trio of berries rather than just two. However, I only had blueberries and strawberries on hand, and I really wanted to bake that day. Needless to say, having just the two berries actually turned out really well! But if you want to add another type of berry or if you want to choose completely different berries, it would be totally fine! Just keep the total cups of berries to 2 1/2 cups for this recipe. And since I’m using lavender to enhance the berry flavors, you can choose any combination of the following berries:
- blueberries
- strawberries
- blackberries
- raspberries
- loganberries (which is like a hybrid of blackberries and raspberries)
- huckleberries
What is pâte sucrée?
You ever wondered what the difference was between a pie and a tart? It basically comes down to the type of crust. When you think of pie, the most common crust used is pâte brisée (pronounced “paht bree-zay“). In French, brisée means “broken,” so the name refers to the broken pieces of fat (or butter) in a tender, flaky pie dough. You can use it with both sweet and savory fillings.
On the other hand, pâte sucrée (pronounced “paht soo-kray“) is a sweet shortcrust pastry. In French, sucrée means “sweet.” This crust follows the same methods to making a pie crust, but it’s sweeter and uses egg as a binder rather than water. Because of the egg, the resulting pastry is more crumbly rather than flaky. And as the name suggests, this crust is typically used as a vehicle for sweet fillings.
Tools you’ll need
Ingredients
Tart shell
- 250 g (~1 2/3 cups) all-purpose flour
- 75 g (~1/2 cup, packed) powdered sugar
- 115 g (~1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cold
- 1 egg, whisked
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Berry lavender filling
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 1/2 cups strawberries, chopped small
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp dried lavender
- zest and juice of one lemon
Instructions
- Pulse the flour, powdered sugar, butter, and salt in a food processor until crumbly (about 10 pulses). Then, add the whisked egg and vanilla extract, and pulse until dough forms.
- Take the dough out onto a plastic wrap, and use the plastic to reshape the dough into a disk, about one-inch thickness. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- While the tart dough is chilling, combine the blueberries, chopped strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, dried lavender, lemon zest and lemon juice in medium bowl. Toss around until all of the berries are coated with sugar, lavender, and lemon. Set aside.
- Preheat your oven at 375 degrees.
- Take our your chilled dough onto a floured flat surface and roll it out in a larger circle, about 1/6-inch to 1/4-inch in thickness. Carefully place onto a lightly-greased tart pan, subtly pressing around the edges so that the tart dough contours the grooves of the side of the pan. With a small knife, cut off the excess dough all around the top of the pan so that edges of the dough are the same level height as the side of the tart pan.
- Put a parchment paper onto the tart pan and fill it with your pie weights. Partially bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
- Once the tart shell is done partially baking, take it out, and carefully remove the pie weights and parchment paper. Then, pour the berry lavender filling evenly onto the tart shell. Put the whole tart back in the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes.
- After baking, let it cool for at least 15-20 minutes before removing the tart from the pan. Enjoy!
// ON THE SCENE
- Bottom backdrop: Replica Surfaces — Biscotti Linen
- Props: measuring spoon, strawberries, dried lavender, linen towel, wooden trivet