Afternoon Tea Party with Fresh Fruit Tarts

My daughter and I had a girly tea party a few weekends ago.  She is a major inspiration to my inner girlishness, which I'm amazed that I had it in me at all.  I was in a mood for making some tarts.  One thing let to another, Cassis and I were having this super girly tea party on the patio.  

This tea party was also inspired by two other elements besides her - Ann of Green Gables and my new vintage props.  Almost every time I bake or make jam, I think of the book.  How I used to wonder and was fascinated in the small fishing town of Southern Japan, what it's like to taste a homemade pie.  When I was growing up,  moms didn't bake sweets at all.  It was too foreign and no one had decent/real ovens.  I probably read the books when I was around 10 years old (translated in Japanese).  My daughter is still too small for it, but I can't wait to read it with her when she's a bit older and get all girly together with her.

Anyway, one of my favorite things to do with my free time is to go to this enormous antique store by my house and browse around mindlessly. I found this beautifully stitched vintage table cloth for $5 and the retro cup with saucer made in Sweden for only $3 the other day.  Also it's not vintage, but I found the ceramic spoon (see the first photo) when I was at Saturday Night Market in Chiang Mai, Thailand, earlier this year.  It's from Clay Studio Pottery.  I fell in love with this beautiful rustic spoon.  

I make this tart now and then.  It takes a little effort to make tart dough, but the rest is super simple.  My husband thought I bought them at a French bakery.  Simple, easy, inexpensive and impressive.  My kind of baking item!

(Hope you all had a fun and happy Halloween!)

 Recipe: makes 8 medium sized tarts

Tart Crust: (recipe adopted from here)

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 stick of butter (=1/2 cup =115gram)

1 large egg

1/2 cup of powder sugar

a pinch of salt

a couple of table spoons of ice water or cold milk

zests from one large lemon

half a tea spoon of good pure vanilla extract

Filling:

2 cups of greek yogurt or mascarpone cheese

2 tablespoon of honey

a pinch of lemon zest

Topping:

fresh peaches, figs, grapes, berries, whatever the fresh fruits you like.

Cut a cold stick of butter into small cubes.  Put cubes butter, powder sugar and salt in the food processor and run it until the mixture forms like fine  breadcrumbs.  Add egg, lemon zest, vanilla extract and run the food processor for a few time. Add some cold water or milk as need.  Wrap the dough in a bowl with plastic wrap over it and rest it in the refrigerator for at least an hour.  Preheat the oven at 350 degrees and grease tart tins (or tart tin).  Take the dough out and roll it out to 5mm thick.  Cut them to fit in the tart tins and rest them in the freezer for 5 minutes or so.  Take them out, sprinkle some coarse sugar on top, and bake them for about 12-15 minutes until they are golden and brown.  Take the tarts out of the tins and cool them down.

Mix all the filling mixture, chop the fruits into small wedges.  Put filling into the tarts and top them with fresh fruits.