Blood orange and grapefruit tart

Blood oranges. Doesn't that just sounds so good already? Scouring the Internet for recipes is sort of like a habitual daily routine for me. I love fruits. All sorts of fruits (most of the time). The citrus family are favourites - the lemons, the oranges, the limes. So when I kept seeing blood oranges in recipes, I was intrigued. Never before have I seen those red hued beauties. So when I read the papers on one weekend, reporting that blood oranges are in season and are available at selected grocery stores. Do I really need to say more?

In fact, I was so eager for a taste of these babies, that even though they cost a pretty penny, I bought two bags of them. The first was bought by the Sister, then several days later, after sampling the citrus fruit at home (wow), I got myself another bag (cos, who knows when they might come in season again...). Logical reasoning yes?

Bloody blood oranges

Fruit tartlets

After thinking hard on what I was going to do with my precious bounty, I was drawn to the lovely colours in this tart. Oh! All that lovely citrus goodness! One thing though, peeling citrus segments is no joke, so I just narrowed the choices down to the blood oranges and grapefruits.

Crust ingredients; Blood orange and grapefruit tart

I decided to use the recipe from here for the tart and pastry cream. No problems whatsoever. I do love making tarts, if I could say so. ;) The arranging of the fruit segments for the medium tart is a tad messy though, but who cares, just gimme a slice already!

Fruits galore - Golden raspberries; Grapefruit; Blood oranges; Blueberries

When I was at the supermart, I saw these lovely golden raspberries. They were even cheaper than the normal red cousins. I know they probably taste the same, but I just couldn't resist grabbing a punnet just to "try" (as if I've never sampled a raspberry before! Ha!).

I was going to make all mini fruit tartlets cos miniature anything always look so pretty. Halfway rolling my sixth miniature tart tough, I was fed up of doing it (it was near midnight when I was rolling the crust to chill overnight). So I opened my pantry cupboard, rummaged through the tart tins and produced a medium sized (6"?) fluted tart tin and proceeded to roll the remaining dough to fit into that one tin. See? Easier work makes for a happier me.

The next day, I baked the tart shells, and made the pastry cream while waiting for the tarts to cool. Then I had to do the labourious task of segmenting the fruits. :( But the results were worth it! -sings- I love fruit tarts. They make me one happy girl.  

Moral of the story? Crunchy tart shell + velvety smooth vanilla bean pastry cream + fresh sweet fruits = lethal combination.