Tart

Serve this tart at a Halloween party, and watch as unsuspecting guests get lured into its chocolate web. The lightly spiced chocolate crust is coated with melted chocolate, then filled with creamy pumpkin purée. More melted semisweet chocolate is piped in a spiderweb pattern to add a frightful finish; the web also serves as an excellent guide for slicing.

For this edible interpretation of Old Glory, rows of raspberries, some glazed with jam and some dusted with powdered sugar, form the American flag’s red and white stripes; blueberries represent the starry field of blue. One tart will have seven rows of berries; the other six. Use smaller berries for the seven-row tart. If you have only one tart pan, you can bake the shells consecutively; let the first shell cool completely in the pan before removing. The interior of each tart shell is brushed with melted chocolate before it is filled; this is an optional step for added flavor. An easy variation (see below) yields three solid-colored tarts in blue, white, and red—also the colors of the French flag—perfect for a Bastille Day celebration.

Treat Dad to something special on Father’s Day: an over-the-top, unforgettable chocolate dessert. Just like the fudge and the ice-cream variety of the same name, our Rocky Road Tart is jam-packed with mini marshmallows, salted almonds, and chocolate chunks, all in an easy graham-cracker crust. It’s sure to become an annual tradition.

It’s as nice a Mother’s Day present as a bouquet of fresh flowers, but even sweeter: Delicate poached apple slices, rolled up to resemble blooms, make a pretty arrangement atop a bed of buttermilk cream in a flaky puff-pastry shell. You can bake the pastry and poach the apple slices a day ahead; refrigerate apples submerged in the poaching liquid. Because the filling needs half an hour to set, spread it on the cooled baked pastry and shape the roses (page 342) while you wait.

This fresh berry tart defies the notion that Passover desserts are any less indulgent than those that contain flour and dairy. The “missing” ingredients are more than made up for by the chewy coconut crust, soft vanilla-almond filling, and flavorful fruit on top. It’s perfect for Passover—or any other time of the year.

Petite chocolate tarts pair the sophistication of truffles with the playfulness of brightly colored Valentine candies—in this case, piped meringue hearts. Each tart is sized for two valentines to share; you can also make one large tart in a ten-and-a-half-inch heart-shaped pan (as pictured on page 242). The baking time will remain the same.

A familiar motif can inspire kitchen artistry: Here, a double-crust strawberry tart is adorned with a stylized bandanna pattern. Aspic cutters, available at baking-supply stores, are used to create the punched grid of tiny ovals and dots.

For this Scandinavian-inspired dessert, bittersweet-chocolate-enriched dough is pressed into the pan, and more is rolled into long ropes and pressed to form a herringbone pattern on top. Lingonberry jam is available at specialty stores or Scandinavian markets.

A cluster of grapes is cut from the top crust of this tart to suggest the fruit inside. Sweet, musky Concord grapes are first made into a jam, then sandwiched between the pastry rounds. You will need a nonreactive pan and a candy thermometer for the jam.

These fanciful tartlets are easy to construct with make-ahead components. The fresh figs can be roasted and then chilled, with the flavorful cooking syrup, for up to a week. The cream filling can be made a day ahead and refrigerated; the fluted pastry shells also can be baked the day before and held overnight at room temperature.

In classic French cooking, a large dessert shell made entirely of meringue is called a vacherin, so called for its resemblance to a well-known cheese; it is usually layered with whipped cream and fruit. Here, small-scale meringue shells are filled with lime curd, whose bright color is especially striking in contrast with the crisp white shells.

With scalloped pastry edges and a fruit-streaked, creamy filling, these tarts are almost too pretty to eat, but they’re too delicious not to. The filling is similar to a British spoon dessert called fool, which consists of a fruit sauce (in this case, blackberry) folded into whipped cream; more sauce and fruit is spooned on top. Elderflower cordial, another English specialty, flavors the whipped cream; you can omit the liqueur from the recipe if you want. You could also use it to flavor homemade ice cream to serve alongside.

The secret to this filling’s silkiness and deep caramel flavor is sweetened condensed milk, which is very slowly simmered until thick and golden, then blended with a mixture of cream cheese and crème fraîche. The spicy-sweet graham-cracker crust incorporates ground ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper; persimmon slices adorn the tops.

Their subtle sweetness and affinity for spices make carrots a natural choice for other baked goods besides the more familiar cakes and muffins. Here, they provide an unexpected flavor for individual tarts with another surprise: pastry crusts coated in crushed gingersnaps.

Handy no-fork treats win raves from kids for their lip-smacking taste; busy parents and other home cooks appreciate how easy they are to bake by the dozen. Once the dough is cut into rounds and pressed into mini-muffin cups, it is filled with a toss-together berry filling that becomes wonderfully jamlike during baking. Top each with a tiny dollop of whipped cream.

As delicious—and easy to make—as drop cookies, coconut macaroons make airy shells when pressed and baked in tartlet molds. They will keep for days, and are very versatile. These are filled with vanilla whipped cream and candied ginger, but fresh fruit, citrus curd, and chocolate ganache are other nice options.

Martha originally created this recipe for a boating picnic in Maine. The tartlets are filled with blueberries, both fresh and preserved. Almond flavors the sturdy crust and the cakelike batter for the filling. Use wild blueberries if you can find them; otherwise, cultivated berries will do—the smaller, the better.

Ethereal, light-as-air sweets start with thin tuile cookies that are draped over inverted small brioche molds while still warm. Once cooled, each ruffled cup is filled with velvety curd and topped with a playful baked-meringue peaked cap. You will need a nonstick baking mat for the cups.

Each of these tiny tea-party treats features a pastry shell flecked with poppy seeds, rich lemon curd, a candied lemon slice, and a whipped-cream rosette sprinkled with more poppy seeds. Admittedly, making a bunch of them takes more time than a larger dessert, but most of the components can be prepared ahead (the shells and candied lemon will keep nearly a week). Then it’s only a matter of filling and topping the tarts just before serving, using a pastry bag and a star-shaped tip to quickly pipe the cream.

This gluten-free, dairy-free, no-cook tart relies on dates and pecans for a sturdy crust, maple syrup for sweetness, and bananas and coconut for tropical flavors. The cashew “cream” is made by grinding cashews with water and vanilla-bean seeds. Soaking the nuts overnight in water ensures a puddinglike texture once they are ground. All in all, it makes an enticing dessert, even for those without food allergies or sensitivities.

This vibrant tart heralds the arrival of spring. First-of-the-season rhubarb stalks are poached in spiced brandy, then spooned over a silken citrus-and-yogurt mousse. The cornmeal crust is baked in a springform pan for extra height. You can bake the crust one day, fill with mousse the next, then chill overnight before topping and serving. The rhubarb can also be poached a day ahead and chilled separately.

Chocolate marries well with many different types of fruit, but pears and chocolate make an extra-special pair. Here, a ring of sliced fruit sits atop a deep, dark chocolate filling, which puffs up as it bakes. Arrange the slices so the curved edges all face the same way, with the narrow ends pointing toward the tart’s center.

A citrusy dessert can feel like a burst of sunshine on a wintry day. For this easy tart, a ground-almond crust is quickly pulsed in a food processor, then pressed in the pan and baked until golden brown. The no-bake filling, essentially yogurt thickened with gelatin, takes mere minutes to assemble before it is poured into the shell, chilled, and topped with thinly sliced oranges.