Endless Tart Versatility

Tarts can be the “little black dress” of the menu. Elegant or rustic, sweet or savory, classic or contemporary, they’re endlessly versatile, always appropriate and always perceived as a little bit special.

Similar to pies, tarts traditionally consist of sweet or savory fillings in a crust. But while pie fillings are often enclosed in a second top layer of pastry—or perhaps a lattice pastry or crumb topping—tarts typically are open-faced with artfully arranged fruits, vegetables, nuts or other fillings providing attractive presentations. Usually made in shallow, straight-sided baking pans with removable bottoms and fluted edges, or sometimes in tart rings called flans, tarts can also be free-form. These more-casual, rustic versions feature pastry crust simply rolled flat and topped with ingredients, with only the edges of the pastry folded up to contain the filling.

Old and New World examples

The most famous examples of tarts throughout history include both structured and free-form types. In France, for instance, classic quiche Lorraine is made in tart pans or pie plates that contain its luxurious custardy filling of cream, egg, onion or leek and bacon. French galettes, on the other hand, are rustic, free-form, open-face tarts wherein a thin, crispy pastry crust holds sweet or savory fillings—thinly sliced apples, for instance, or potatoes and leeks. And one of France’s most famous tarts, tarte Tatin, named for the Tatin sisters who created it (reportedly by accident) at l’Hotel Tatin in the late 1800s, is an upside-down apple tart in which the apples are caramelized in butter and sugar before the tart is baked.

Outside of France, Italy’s crostata resembles a galette—a baked, free-form, open-face dessert tart traditionally prepared by folding the edges of the dough over the top of a fruit, jam or thinly sliced vegetable filling. Austria’s famous Linzer tart, created in the city of Linz, features a nut crust—usually almonds or hazelnuts—fitted into a fluted-edged pan, filled with raspberry jam and topped with lattice strips of the rich nut pastry.

Such classic tarts continue to be popular, especially on bistro and Mediterranean-style menus, but their popularity is expanding well beyond these traditional niches as American chefs give tarts their own unique spin. With a simple crust as a carrier, virtually any combination of fillings makes them easy signature menu items at any time of day and on any part of the menu—whether breakfast, lunch or dinner, appetizer, entrée, snack or dessert.

Whether savory or sweet, adapting current menu trends to tart presentations is easy, and ingredients that make producing dough and fillings that stand up to freeze/thaw processing are widely available and infinitely customizable.

Savory layers

On the savory side, tarts are increasingly popular baked in individual, single-serving portions, menued as breakfast items or appetizers, or paired with a side salad as a light entrée. Hand-held options, too, with fillings fully encased in tart crust, are gaining favor as foodservice operators look for new ways to satisfy insatiable consumer demands for convenience and on-the-go foods.

Whatever their size or shape, a trick to developing great savory tarts is to think in terms of layering flavors and incorporating or complementing key filling flavors into the crust. For example, a tart featuring a chicken, sun-dried tomato and goat cheese filling delivers truer flavors after freeze/thaw and bake-off if the tomato and cheese flavors, in the form of powders or liquids, are added to the dough. The chicken should be enhanced with complementary flavors—maybe rosemary, or basil and balsamic—by marinating it prior to assembly.

Meats for tart applications, in general, benefit from marinating to add more flavor. Vegetables, too, can be marinated or seasoned, and should always be individually quick-frozen (IQF) vs. fresh for best performance in prepared tarts.

Any desired flavor can be easily and consistently enhanced via such techniques in prepared, frozen tarts. A blackened chicken tart can incorporate blackening spices into the crust. A caramelized onion and pancetta tart gets an extra boost from pancetta flavor. Enzyme-modified cheese powders add an extra bite of cheese flavor—from feta to Asiago, blue or Parmesan—to crusts and fillings alike.

Enhancing flavors up front and layering flavors at each phase of production not only ensures a richly flavored end-product, but also adds value from a menu-merchandising standpoint. For example, “grilled marinated vegetable and goat cheese tart with savory herbed crust” has greater appeal on a menu and commands stronger pricing than simply “grilled vegetable and goat cheese tart.”

Certainly, as in product development across the board, bigger, bolder flavors and ethnic twists are driving tart innovations. At a recent ideation session, for example, we sampled savory tarts with fillings such as roasted portabella and caramelized onion, mango tandoori chicken, black bean and chipotle chicken, spicy chicken chorizo, spinach Florentine, Thai peanut, and smoky barbecue with Gouda cheese.

However, keep in mind that there’s fusion of flavors, and then there’s confusion of flavors. Fusion is great and can be very successful, but don’t overdo it. Stick to a couple of key flavors and really make them sing.

In developing savory tarts, we’ve also taken cues from popular items in other menu categories, deconstructing them and rebuilding them as tarts. From the sandwich menu, for instance, we created individual turkey-Rueben tarts; from pizza, we developed Margherita tarts; and from the breakfast menu, we created an egg, cheese and caramelized-onion tart with a hash-brown crust.