Blueberry Buttermilk Tart
This berry-picking habit of mine is getting a little out of hand. I mean, I have stuff in the bottom of my chest freezer. Good stuff. Stuff I'd like to haul out and cook for dinner some nights. But it's off limits because of all the freezer bags full of berries I've packed ever so carefully on the very top of everything else in the freezer. When I first put them in there, the bags were plump with berry goodness, and still fresh and squishy. In that state, they'll fit into any old crevice in the freezer. They snuggle in and freeze solid, waiting for their call to duty.
But if you take a couple of those frozen-solid bags out of the freezer in order to fish out some fish? Or, god forbid, if you remove more than a couple bags? They don't go back in! No matter how hard you try. That lid will not close.
A sane person would tell herself to stop picking berries. After all, how many berries does a two-person household need? But I am Insane with a capital "i" when it comes to berry-picking. I have dreams -- no wait, nightmares! -- involving me spending a few peaceful hours in the woods filling a bucket with berries then heading down the trail back to my car only to be confronted by a grizzly bear, standing in the middle of the trail and licking his lips hungrily in the general direction of my bucket.
These dreams don't end well for the bear.
So the freezer gets more and more full by the week. It can't be stopped, this picking habit of mine. Don't even try. I've come up with a solution of my own for the over-stuffed chest freezer: I stack heavy power tools on top of it to keep the lid closed tight.
On Sunday, I decided to take a break from picking and actually bake something with some of the blueberries I picked recently. Ordinarily, I would have headed straight for my favorite blueberry pie recipe. But the other day at the thrift store, I found an awesome tart pan and I wanted to use that. It's one of those Made-In-France tart tins with the razor sharp edges and the removable bottom. Pretty scalloped, fluted edges.
If loving a tart pan this much is wrong then I don't want to be right.
And this was the recipe I decided to make. A blueberry buttermilk tart. You put your crust in your pan then throw in the blueberries and spread them evenly, then pour a lemon-scented and buttery buttermilk custard over the works. The custard has lemon zest and lemon juice and it's blended together in a food processor or blender -- when you take the lid off that food processor after blending until smooth, the scents of lemon and butter waft out at you. It's heavenly.
I took the bowl over to my husband to share it with his nose.
"Yeah great," he said after a quick double-sniff. "When's that gonna be ready?"
Not only was this recipe a perfect way to use some of my berries, it also finished off the quart of buttermilk that was lurking in my fridge. The recipe is a little time-consuming, I must admit, what with all the making of the dough, then the refrigerating of the dough, then the rolling out and shaping of the dough, and then ... more refrigerating of the dough... next time I might just use my favorite pie crust and save myself some prep and baking time because the results?
The results are wonderful. I didn't take a piece of this to work with me today. All day long I sat at my desk dreaming of having a piece after dinner while reclining on the couch, maybe watching some Slings and Arrows, a little blueberry juice on one lip, some powdered sugar on the other lip... not a bad way to wrap up a Monday.
Baked and sprinkled with sugar:
Ready to be devoured:
And if you'll excuse me, there's a piece just like this one with my name on it upstairs in the fridge.
Blueberry Buttermilk Tart
For the shell:
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 c sugar
1/4 t salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into little bits
1 large egg yolk beaten with 2 T ice water
raw rice for weighting down the shell
For the filling:
1 c buttermilk
3 large egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
1 T freshly-grated lemon zest
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 stick (1/4 c) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 t vanilla
1/2 t salt
2 T all-purpose flour
2 c blueberries
Powdered sugar for sprinkling
Ice cream, if desired
Make the shell:
Stir together flour, sugar, and salt. Add the butter and blend until it resembles coarse meal. Add yolk mixture and toss until the liquid is incorporated. Form dough into a ball. Dust with flour and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, for 1 hour.
Roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness on a floured surface. Fit into a 10-inch tart pan with a removable fluted rim. Chill shell for at least 30 minutes or, covered, overnight.
(If you're making the tart all at once instead of chilling the crust overnight, this is a good point to melt the 1/2 stick of butter for the filling -- doing it now will give it time to cool off before adding it to the filling later)
Line shell with foil and fill the foil with rice. Bake shell in the middle of a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil and rice carefully and bake the shell for 5 - 10 minutes more, or until pale golden. Let it cool in the pan on a rack.
Meanwhile:
Make the filling:
In a blender or food processor, blend the buttermilk, yolks, sugar, lemon zest and juice, butter, vanilla, salt and flour. Blend until smooth. Spread blueberries over the bottom of the tart shell and pour buttermilk mixture over top.
Bake tart in the middle of a preheated oven for 30 - 35 minutes or until filling is just set.
Let tart cool completely in the pan on a rack. Then sprinkle with powdered sugar, sifted, and serve at room temperature or chilled, with ice cream if desired.
