Boat Tart

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A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with custard.

The categories of 'tart', 'flan', and 'pie' overlap, with no sharp distinctions, though 'pie' is the more common term in the United States.

Early medieval tarts generally had meat fillings, but later ones were often based on fruit and custard.

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down tart, of apples, other fruit, or onions.

Savoury tarts include quiche, a family of savoury tarts with a mostly custard filling; German zwiebelkuchen 'onion tart', and Swiss cheese tart made from Gruyere

Here is a recipe unearthed from a long list of favorites due to a query made by a friend. Boat tarts are small pies I remember buying when I was in highschool. It is shaped like a boat thus the name.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 

1 tbl plus 1 teaspoon sugar 

8 tbl (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pea-sized bits 

1 piece egg beaten with 1 cup iced water 

Egg Wash: 

2 tablespoon water 

1 tablespoon flour 

1 egg yolk 

Cashew Filling: 

3/4 cup sugar 

4 eggs 

1 cup dark corn syrup 

2 tablespoon dark rum 

1 tablespoon vanilla extract 

4 tablespoon melted unsalted butter

2 cups (10 ounces) roasted unsalted cashews 

Procedure:

1. This is basically the same procedure as blind baking for pies.

Shaped pie crust ready for baking blind. Photo by missbossy

• In a large bowl, sift the flour and sugar together. 
• Using a pastry blender, fork or your fingertips, work the butter into the mixture until it resembles coarse meal. 
• Sprinkle on 3 to 4 tablespoons of the egg-water mixture, and mix it in with your fingers until the dough comes together into a ball. 
• Working on a lightly floured surface, take egg-sized pieces of the dough and smear them away from you with the heel of your hand into 6-inch streaks. 
• Scrape up all the streaks of dough and pile them on top of one another to form a disc. 
• Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. 
• Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F. 
• Lightly butter your boat tart pans (Muffin cup molds will also do)
• On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough. Use a bowl bigger than your tart pan as a pattern. Press on the dough and get the cut circle.
• Fit the dough into the prepared tart pans.
• Trim the excess dough to a 1-inch overhang and double the dough over itself to reinforce the sides (save the trimmings for any emergency patchwork). 
• Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
• Line the tart shell with aluminum foil and weight down with dried beans or pie weights. 
• Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for 5 minutes longer or until lightly browned. 
• Patch any visible holes in the shell with the reserved dough scraps. 
• Brush the shell with Egg Wash and return to the oven for 5 more minutes, until the wash is shiny and no longer runny. 
• Transfer to a rack to cool and lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F or 160deg C.

2. Spread the cashews in the partially baked shell and cover with the Cashew Filling, making sure the nuts are covered.

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until little bubbles appear around the edges of the tart and the center looks barely set. 

4. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Egg Wash Procedure:

1. In a small bowl and with use of a fork, mix together the water, flour, and egg yolk. Cover and refrigerate.

Cashew Filling Procedure:

1. In a large bowl, lightly beat the sugar and eggs together. Add the corn syrup, rum, and vanilla and beat just to a blend. Mix in the melted butter.

Tips:

You can make your own homemade light corn syrup as substitute for the market brand. For this easy light corn syrup substitute, click here.

To learn the step by step baking blind procedure, click here.

Egg pie is also known as custard pie. Both the pie and filling for egg pie can be used for this boat tart recipe. For egg pie recipe, click here.

I myself find the idea of putting foil and baking beans on each boat tart pan so  tasking. What I do is I stack them all over each other. This works best also for silicon muffin molds. The top most dough is the only one in need of baking beans. Economical and practical.


Here is a video of how to make blueberry lemon tartlets (also known as mini tarts).