I woke up yesterday morning wanting to bake a coconut key lime tart. Where the idea came from is beyond me. But it sounded like a good idea and it was Saturday so I had plenty of time for baking.

My craving told me I wanted a normal key lime filling with a coconut graham cracker crust. In addition, I wanted whipped cream and toasted coconut on top. With specific details like this, you’d think I’d made this particular tart before. But I hadn’t.

I have made key lime tarts before. I think the last one I made was a little off but I can’t quite recall what was wrong with it. Rather than risk even the slightest failure, I went to the internet. After looking around the web a little, I found Peabody’s Camping Key Lime Pie with Coconut-Pecan Graham Cracker Crust. Her recipe looked perfect but I didn’t feel like running to the store for pecans or mascarpone cheese…so I left them out and altered the recipe.

Coconut Key Lime Tart

Both recipes printed here are very slightly adapted from the Key Lime Pie recipe found at the Culinary Concoctions by Peabody website.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup key lime juice, fresh if possible
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 5 egg yolks
• whipped cream (for garnish)
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup toasted coconut (for garnish)
• 1 coconut graham cracker pie crust (see recipe below)

Directions

1. Whisk sweetened condensed milk with the egg yolks.
2. Stir in whipping cream and key lime juice.
3. Pour into prepared coconut graham cracker crust and bake at 325° for 15 minutes.
4. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate for at least an hour before slicing.

Coconut Graham Cracker Crust

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs (approximately 12 graham crackers)
• 1/2 cup toasted sweetened coconut flakes, crushed into tiny pieces
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract
• 6-7 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Directions

1. In a food processor, blend together graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and sugar.
2. Add about 6 tablespoons melted butter. Pulse a few times. If it seems like it needs more butter add the remaining tablespoon.
3. Pour contents into an 11″ tart pan and press to form a shell.
4. Bake crust for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

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My boyfriend is of the opinion that cranberries taste very similar to what he would expect potpourri to taste like. Not that he (or I) have ever eaten potpourri.

So he doesn’t care for cranberries and I kind of like them. This causes just a hint of strife when I mention baking something with cranberries. I’ve made at least a couple of things with cranberries in them this year in an attempt to get him to like them. I haven’t really had much success.

I found the recipe for this cranberry tart at The Kitchn and decided to make it today. I quickly warned the boyfriend that I was baking a tart today that he might not like. He may have groaned in response but knew that I was going to bake it whether he’d like it or not.

After dinner tonight, we tried the tart. While he may not have been crazy about it, he did say that he would eat it. He also said that someone who actually really likes cranberries would probably love it. That’s probably the best response I’m going to get out of a cranberry hater.

The recipe can be found here at The Kitchn.

I made very few alterations to their recipe. Instead of orange zest, I used the zest and juice of one Meyer lemon. Instead of mixing the walnuts into the filling, I used about a cup of them and put them on top so that they would remain crunchy. Other than that, I followed the recipe.

Oh, I used the pie crust recipe found here. Truthfully it’s the only pie crust I use these days.

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This is a crumb topped tart containing a mixture of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries & cranberries.

Despite the fact that I’m a little burnt out on this dessert, I am posting the recipe for it as it has been requested several times.

I made this mixed berry tart four times in the month of November. The first time was entirely by choice for a small party at home. The second time was not by choice and had to be prepped in a hurry very late at night and baked very early the next morning. The third time was for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. And the fourth time should have overlapped the third time for the boyfriend’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner…but it didn’t. I baked the same tart twice in two days due to a slight communication error. So…I won’t be making this tart again for at least a few months. But I’ll share the recipe now so that someone else can enjoy it.

The bottom crust of the tart is the Flaky Pie Crust recipe from the book Sweety Pies. I previously blogged about this crust in October and you can find the recipe for the crust here.

The pictures here are of small individual tarts that I made…the recipes below are for making one large tart in an 11″ fluted tart pan. Or if you don’t have one of those, the recipes should work pretty well for a standard size pie plate.

Mixed Berry Tart

First, you will need to make a half recipe of the Flaky Pie Crust found here.

Next, you will need to make the crumb topping as listed below.

Crumb Topping

Recipe from Sweety Pies

Ingredients (for an 11″ tart)

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon until well mixed.

2. Work the butter in with a pastry blender (or your fingers) until the mixture resembles crumbs the size of tiny peas. Set aside.

Mixed Berry Filling

Ingredients (for an 11″ tart)

• 4 1/2 cups mixed berries (use any combination you want here – I used blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and cranberries in my tarts – but if you use just a couple of types of berries, it will still taste great!)
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind (I use freeze-dried lemon peel from Penzey’s)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the crust in the tart pan and set aside.

2. Make the filling. Stir together the sugar and flour until well mixed. Gently stir in the berries, lemon rind and juice. Pour the mixture over prepared tart crust.

3. Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the the top of the pie.

4. Place tart in the oven on a cookie sheet or pizza pan large enough to catch any juices that might bubble over. You’ll regret it if you don’t put something under it and it does bubble over. Bake until crumb topping is golden brown, about 40-45 minutes.

4. As with any berry pies or tarts, cool to room temperature before slicing and eating.

5. Serve at room temperature, cold, or warm. It’s fantastic all three ways. It’s good plain and even better with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

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For Wordless Wednesday info and more posts, go here.

The recipe for this S’mores Tart is here.

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Pictured in this post is a blackberry and peach tart I made in July. My mom gave me a bunch of fresh fruit she’d picked locally…probably more than we could eat before they went bad. Since blackberries don’t seem to keep particularly well, I turned them into these tarts.

They’re made with a walnut shortbread crust that I adapted from an almond shortbread crust recipe I previously used to make cherry tarts. I liked that crust a lot so it was an easy choice for this tart. I believe that this recipe is the one I used to make the original almond crust. Go figure, it’s a Dorie Greenspan recipe from Bon Appetit. I should have known.

To assemble the tart, I lightly pressed the shortbread into the tart pans, sliced the peaches, tossed them gently with a little bit of flour, sugar and cinnamon and layered them in the shortbread crust. The blackberries were then scattered over the peaches. I wanted the fruit in this tart to remain separate…unlike some previous berry and peach things I’ve made where the fruit melded together.

The fruit was then topped with an oatmeal walnut crumb topping and baked until the crust was golden brown.

Other stuff: Sadly, the week at the beach is coming to a close…it kind of went by too fast. We went on a day trip to Charleston, SC yesterday. We didn’t set out to see anything in particular…we simply parked the car and walked around all afternoon taking photographs. I’ll probably write a post about that trip as we took a lot of pretty decent pictures.

Other than the trip to Charleston, I’ve just lazed about all week. I spent a little more time on the internet than I should have and I did a fair amount of reading but I didn’t touch any of the knitting I brought with me. I really should start knitting again…if for no reason other than I have an awful lot of yarn in my stash. Maybe the mood will strike once we’ve moved and are completely settled into the new house. Or maybe the knitting bug will strike again once fall arrives.

We’ll be heading back to Williamsburg in the morning…as much as I don’t want the vacation to end, I will be glad to be at home to bake. I’ve been craving sweets all week and I really don’t like grocery store desserts anymore. Ice cream kind of did the trick yesterday…but baked from scratch goodies would have been better. Oh well…I’ll be home to make them soon enough.

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