Maddie Day's Ode to Summer Fruit Tart

Award-winning author Maddie Day writes several cozy mystery series, including the CeCeBarton Mysteries, Country Store Mysteries, and Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. She also wrote the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, Dot and Amelia Mysteries, Local Foods Mysteries, Lauren Rousseau Mysteries, and Agatha-nominated and award-winning short crime fiction under the name Edith Maxwell.

The recipe shown below appears in Murder at the Rusty Anchor, book six in the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries by Maddie Day. You can learn more about this book and Maddie's other books at EdithMaxwell.com

Recipe Note From Author Maddie Day

Maddie Day learned this delicious dessert featuring summer fruits from her good friend Jennifer Yanco in the late 1970s. The recipe is a classic and needs no updating. Tim whips up an Ode for an easy summer dessert.

Ode to Summer Fruit Tart Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup unbleached white flour

• 1/4 cup butter

• 2 egg yolks

• 1 whole egg

• 1/4 cup sugar

• Pinch salt

• 8 ounces softened cream cheese (not whipped)

• Grated rind of one lemon

• Summer fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, peeled and sliced ripe peaches

• 1/2 cup fruit jelly

Directions

• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

• Cut butter into flour until the consistency of coarse salt.

• Beat together yolks, whole egg, sugar, and salt.

• Mix into flour and butter until well combined. On a floured surface, pat into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

• Preheat oven to 350° F. On the lined sheet, roll the dough to about 8" x 10" (not too thin).

• Bake the pastry for ten to twenty minutes. Watch carefully for browning. Cool on a wire rack.

• Mix the cream cheese and grated lemon rind together. Spread all over the cooled pastry.

• Arrange the fruit in any kind of pleasing motif.

• Melt the fruit jelly in the microwave or a small saucepan and paint on the arranged fruit with a brush.

• Slice into squares and serve for dessert or with brunch.