Week One Recipe: Peach Crème Brûlée Tart

I thought I'd get the ball rolling here! This is a recipe I've been wanting to try for years now, and it's perfect because peach season has just begun, though theoretically, you could use just about any fruit in place of the peaches.

Peach Crème Brûlée Tart (from Cooking Light)
Cooking Deadline: August 4th

Ingredients

• 1/2  (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury)
• 1/4  cup  sugar
• 3 1/2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
• 1/8  teaspoon  salt
• 2  cups  2% reduced-fat milk
• 1  (4-inch) piece vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 1  large egg, lightly beaten
• 2  cups  sliced ripe peeled peaches
• 1/3  cup  sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 450°.

2. Fit the dough into a 9-inch round removable-bottom tart pan, and pierce dough with a fork; bake at 450° for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely on a wire rack.

3. Place 1/4 cup sugar, flour, and salt in a medium, heavy saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean; add seeds and bean to milk mixture. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 5 minutes), stirring constantly.

4. Place egg in a large bowl. Gradually stir hot milk mixture into egg. Return milk mixture to pan. Cook 2 minutes or until thick and bubbly, stirring constantly. Spoon custard into a small bowl. Place bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice. Cool 20 minutes or until thoroughly chilled, stirring occasionally. Discard vanilla bean.

*If using vanilla extract add it after you've begun to chill the custard. Let cool for 20 minutes*

5. Spread chilled custard into bottom of prepared crust. Arrange the peach slices spoke-like on top of chilled custard. Sprinkle 1/3 cup sugar evenly over peach slices. (Alternatively you could place the peaches on the bottom and the custard on the top for a more crème brûlée like appearance - just remember that the 1/3 cup sugar needs to go on the top of the tart).

6. Holding a kitchen blow torch about 2 inches from the top of the tart, heat the sugar, moving the torch back and forth, until the sugar is melted and caramelized (about 3 minutes). If you don't have a blow torch, you can use the broiler of your oven. Just be sure to cover the exposed areas of crust with foil so it doesn't burn!

Serves 8

Nutritional Information

Calories: 247 (32% from fat)

Fat: 8.8g (sat 3.7g,mono 3.7g,poly 1g)

Protein: 4.5g

Carbohydrate: 37.9g

Fiber: 0.9g

Cholesterol: 36mg

Iron: 0.3mg

Sodium: 175mg

Calcium: 80mg