What is your favourite cake? How many times have you been asked that! And I never know how to answer, but on second thought, the Fresh Fruit Tart with naturally gluten-free flours could take the podium.

So this year I decided to publish the recipe on the occasion of my birthday, because, as it is often happens to who cook, we end up making our own birthday cake! For a garden party, you can also opt for Tartlets with strawberries.

Here’s how to cook it and two different finishes that have delighted the family on different occasions.

Fresh fruit tart with naturally gluten-free flours

50.31g carbohydrates per 100g of tart

Ingredients for the shortbread

• 150g wholemeal rice flour*
• 100g almonds, peeled
• 100g sugar
• 80 g butter
• 60g corn starch*
• 40g potato starch*
• 2 eggs
• 8g baking powder*
• grated lemon rind
• 1 pinch of salt

Ingredients for the pastry cream

• 500g semi-skimmed milk
• 150g sugar
• 40g corn starch*
• 5 egg yolks
• a bit of vanilla from the pod
• rind of 1 lemon (optional)

Ingredients to complete

• 400g mixed fruit
• jelly spray for tarts*

*Ingredients whose labels must read “gluten-free” (or, in Italy, present on  Prontuario AIC)

Preparation

1. Blend the almonds to obtain a flour, then place it in a bowl or planetary mixer with all the other shortcrust pastry ingredients. Mix quickly and when you have obtained a homogeneous dough, place it in the refrigerator to rest for about 30 minutes wrapped in cling film.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the custard. Put the milk in a small saucepan on the stove with the lemon peel (if you like) and bring it almost to the boil. In another container, lightly beat the egg yolks and the sugar with a whisk and when they start to whip up, add the cornflour, making care not to let lumps form, and the vanilla bean tip.
3. Very slowly and always stirring with the whisk, start pouring the boiling milk over the mixture and, once it has all been poured in, return it to the heat until the cream starts to thicken. It is important that you remove the cream from the heat as soon as it starts to thicken, otherwise it will be too hard once it has cooled. Let cool and remove the lemon peel.
4. Take the shortcrust pastry out of the refrigerator, roll it out on a sheet of baking paper to line a baking tin 24cm in diameter or larger (depending on the thickness you like for the tart, you might have some shortcrust pastry left over that you can use to make breakfast biscuits – delicious!). To blind bake the tart, place a sheet of baking paper filled with beans or rice on top of the shortcrust base and bake for about 15 minutes in a static oven preheated to 180°C. Then remove the baking paper with the beans or rice and finish baking the shortcrust base.
5. Now compose the cake. Pour the custard over the base, decorate with the washed and cut fruit and sprinkle the jelly over the fruit so that it does not turn brown. Keep the tart in the fridge until it is ready to be eaten and… enjoy the celebrations!

Version with gluten of Fresh Fruit Tart with natural flours

The recipe contains only naturally gluten free ingredients, so no adaptation is necessary for its version with gluten.