Foxy the French Fruit Tart

My lovely niece Abigail has a sensitive stomach and can’t usually eat cake or frosting, which makes birthday cakes a bit of a challenge. In years past, even with previous ice cream cakes, she usually ends up coming over saying, “Sorry Auntie Ria, but this one hurts my stomach too.” I decided this year to try something a little different and make her all time favorite dessert… a fruit tart! Boy, was it a hit. Everyone loved it so much her mom requested one for her birthday too!

She’s all about foxes right now and so originally I was going to do one of those beautiful number tarts you see all over Pinterest these days, the ones with fresh flowers, fruit and macaroons. After doing some research I realized that they are typically put together with buttercream frosting and I knew I had to go another direction.

So one night about a week before the party, Abigail was spending the night and we go to talking, Abigail explained how she knew exactly how I was going to make a fox tart. She knew I was going to use blueberries for the nose and eyes, bananas for the white fur, and strawberries for the red. She was so excited! I sat enthralled, and thought she had way more faith in my abilities than I did! Usually anything resembling pie crust is a big failure! But as I thought more about it, I decided that was what she was hoping for so let’s do this!

This was such a fun “cake” to make! The recipe I used was a slightly modified version of the Fresh Fruit Tart found on @CulinaryHill. Such an excellent recipe and so easy to follow. My tart crust actually turned out perfectly! For the red fur I mixed fresh strawberries and canned mandarin oranges. (I used canned because they always seem to taste amazing!) For the white fur I used fresh bananas which gave the fur a nice textured look. I wanted some variety and used fresh blackberries for the eyes and fresh blueberries for the nose. I covered it all with apricot glaze.

Our family is pretty big and so I needed to make another tart and decided to make a more traditional tart. It was a hit because there was a slice to satisfy everyone’s palates, especially my brother who avoids everything that ends in berry!