Fortunately we had some overripe kiwi on hand, in addition to a gigantic bag of frollini's (some sort of italian butter cookie). We stumbled upon this recipe for a gingersnap crust, and realized that the aforementioned cookies could be substituted. We crushed 8 ounces of cookies, (which is about 226 grams for you fans of the metric system), and mixed the crumbs with some melted butter.
After the crumbs were mixed evenly with the butter and started to stick together, we pressed them into a pyrex dish (though if you have a tart pan, that will definitely suffice).
The crust before...
And after baking at 325 degrees Fahrenheit, or 163 degrees Celsius.
While the base of our tart was baking, we assembled a quick pastry cream, based on this recipe. A pastry cream is essentially sweetened milk flavored with vanilla, thickened with eggs yolks and corn starch (or flour) and stirred very briskly over heat.
Once it's reached the proper consistency, we transferred it to a bowl, covered it with plastic wrap and set it to cool on the refrigerator. You'll want to push the plastic all the way down to the surface of the cream, to prevent a skin from forming
When it had properly cooled, we prepared the fruit. By peeling:
And slicing the kiwis:
Finally, we assembled the tart, first filling the cookie shell with the cooled pastry cream:
And then arranging the kiwis. The final result was colorful, fresh and absolutely delicious!
*Please note that my delightful NY roommate Rebecca alternately photographed my hands, and assisted in the assembly of this yummy confection. Thanks Becka!
