Fruit Tart - Kind of Homemade

Brian and I went to dinner at our friends Mike and Jen's house on Friday night.  It was a really fun excursion out of the house with Gemma.  Our first, in fact, besides going to our parents' houses.  It turns out when you have a baby your social invitations really go down the drain (in our case anyway, and I'm not complaining, it's just different).  So, we were excited to hang out with some friends, and get out of the house with the baby.  I offered to bring something and Mike suggested dessert.  I wanted to bring something summery and fun, but I only had a couple of hours.  So, I perused a couple of recipes on my handy-dandy iPhone while Gemma and I were at Target and picked up the ingredients to make the fruit tart pictured above.  I call it "kind of" homemade because I took a big short cut for the crust in the interest of time.  This was DELICIOUS!  In fact, I made it again to tweak a few things last night for dinner with my family.  It's very easy and very summery - everyone gave it two thumbs up.

Ingredients

- 1 package of the sugar cookie mix (from the baking aisle at the grocery store, the kind where you just add an egg and some butter)

- 1 egg

- 1/3 cup butter

- 1 and 1/2 packages cream cheese (softened)

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1 tbspn fresh lime or lemon juice

- lime or lemon zest (to your liking)

- fresh fruit, sliced up (small berries can be kept whole)

- 3/4 cup apricot preserves

- 2 tbspn water

Instructions

Start by following the directions on the sugar cookie package.  Preheat the oven as directed.  Grease a tart pan (mine is the kind with the removable bottom, I highly recommend). Once the cookie dough is mixed, push it onto the bottom of the tart pan and up the sides.  Try to keep it thin, you won't need all the cookie dough.  Bake, as directed on package.

Make an apricot glaze.  Heat apricot preserves and 2 tbspn water in a microwaveable dish, stopping and stirring a few times.  I also ran mine through a strainer to get the fruit bits out so I had a nice, smooth, glaze.  Once your crust is cool, brush the glaze onto the crust with a pastry brush (I'm sure a spatula would work, too).  This prevents the crust from getting soggy later.

With a hand mixer, mix the cream cheese, sugar, lemon or lime juice and zest until smooth.  Spread over crust evenly.  Next, arrange all of your fruit in a fancy looking design.  I used peaches, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries in the picture above.  Kiwi, nectarines, blackberries, etc. would all be yummy, too.  Once your fruit is arranged, brush a layer of apricot glaze over the top.  This will keep the fruit in place and give your tart a fancy shiny look.  Ta-dah!  Delish.

Next time, I'd like to allow for more time and make a homemade pastry crust....