Fruit Tart With Pastry Cream Filling

Gather the ingredients. Preheat your oven to 400 F.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pastry dough to a thickness of about a 1/4 inch, and as even as possible. Don't spend too much time rolling it, though, or you'll overwork the dough, and the pastry will be too tough.

Now cut the dough into circles that are a little larger than the diameter of the tart tin you're going to use. In this case, you're making 4-inch tarts, so you'd cut out circles about 4 1/2 inches across.

Press the circles of dough into the tart tins. You want to get a tight fit against the bottom and sides. Trim off any excess dough by running your rolling pin over the tops of the tart tins.

Line the shells with parchment paper and fill with uncooked beans, rice, or pie weights to prevent the crust from puffing up while it bakes.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until the shells are a nice golden brown color.

Remove the pie weights and the paper, and let the shells cool all the way before removing them from the tins.

While they're cooling, heat the apricot jam in a small saucepan along with about a tablespoon of water until it liquefies.

Pour the glaze through a wire mesh strainer and into a small bowl to remove any bits of fruit. 

Now pipe the shells half full of pastry cream. Or you could just spoon it in and gently smooth it down.

Next, arrange your fruit on top of the pastry cream, about a 1/2 cup per tart.

Finally, brush each one with the apricot glaze.

Refrigerate the tarts for at least an hour, until it's time to serve them.