A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a

pastry Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...

base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with

custard Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency fro ...

. Tartlet refers to a miniature tart; an example would be

egg tart The egg tart (; ) is a kind of custard tart found in Chinese cuisine derived from the English custard tart and Portuguese pastel de nata. The dish consists of an outer pastry crust filled with egg custard. Egg tarts are often served at dim s ...

s. The categories of "tart", "

flan Flan may refer to: *Flan (pie), an open sweet or savoury tart, the most common UK meaning *Flan cake, a Filipino cake topped with crème caramel and caramel syrup *Flan de leche or ''crème caramel'', a custard dessert with clear caramel sauce, th ...

", "

quiche Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche Lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, warm or co ...

", and "

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...

" overlap, with no sharp distinctions.

History

Akashi City Museum of Culture Hyogo pref Japan13s

The

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

word ''tarte'' can be translated to mean either pie or tart, as both are mainly the same with the exception of a pie usually covering the filling in pastry, while flans and tarts leave it open. Tarts are thought to have either come from a tradition of layering food, or to be a product of

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

pie making. Enriched dough (i.e. short crust) is thought to have been first commonly used in 1550, approximately 200 years after pies. In this period, they were viewed as high-cuisine, popular with nobility, in contrast to the view of a commoners pie. While originally savoury, with meat fillings, culinary tastes led to sweet tarts to prevail, filling tarts instead with fruit and custard. Early medieval tarts generally had meat fillings, but later ones were often based on fruit and custard. An early tart was the Italian

crostata A crostata is an Italian baked tart or pie, also known as ''coppi'' in Naples and ''sfogliata'' in Lombardy. The earliest known use of ''crostata'' in its modern sense can be traced to the cookbooks ''Libro de Arte Coquinaria'' (Book of the Art o ...

, dating to at least the mid-15th century. It has been described as a "rustic free-form version of an open fruit tart".

Description

Tarts are typically free-standing with firm pastry base consisting of dough, itself made of flour, thick filling, and perpendicular sides while pies may have softer pastry, looser filling, and sloped sides, necessitating service from the pie plate.

Varieties

There are many types of tarts, with popular varieties including Treacle tart, meringue tart, tarte tatin and Bakewell tart. A ''jam tart'' uses

jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and entertai ...

in place of fresh fruit. '' Tarte Tatin'' is an upside-down tart, of apples, other fruit, or onions. Savoury tarts include

, a family of savoury tarts with a mostly custard filling; German

Zwiebelkuchen Zwiebelkuchen (German for "onion cake") is a savory German onion cake made of steamed onions, diced bacon, cream, and caraway seeds on either a yeast or leavened dough. See also * Flammkuchen Similar Alsatian and South-Western German dish * List ...

'onion tart', and Swiss cheese tart made from Gruyère.

Gallery

File:Strawberry tart by Kirti Poddar.jpg,

Strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

tart File:Chocolate tarts by Tammy Green.jpg,

Chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

tart File:Mexican blackberry tart by yoko.jpg, Mexican

blackberry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

tart File:Tarte au riz.jpg,

Rijstevlaai In Dutch cuisine, Dutch and Belgian cuisine, ''rijsttaart(je)''/''rijstevlaai'' (Dutch) or ''tarte au riz'' (French) (german: Reisfladen, all translate to “rice flan”) is a pie with a filling based on rice pudding. It is native to Verviers an ...

File:Blueberry tart.jpg,

Blueberry Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' within the genus ''Vaccinium''. ''Vaccinium'' also includes cranberries, bi ...

and

raspberry The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus '' Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Raspberries are perennial with w ...

tart File:Cranberry Curd Tart.png, Cranberry Curd Tart File:Egg Tarts with Puff Pastry.jpg,

Egg tart The egg tart (; ) is a kind of custard tart found in Chinese cuisine derived from the English custard tart and Portuguese pastel de nata. The dish consists of an outer pastry crust filled with egg custard. Egg tarts are often served at dim s ...

History

Description

Varieties

Gallery

See also

Notes

References

External links