Fresh Gluten Free Fruit Tart

Prep Time : 25 minutes minutes

Cook Time : 30 minutes minutes

This gluten free fruit tart has a light, buttery pastry crust, filled with a no-cook cream filling, & topped with the season’s freshest fruit!

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This gluten free fruit tart has a crisp, buttery base and it’s filled with a sweet, smooth filling made of cream cheese and whipped cream, and topped with all your favorite fruit. My family and I love to cover the creamy filling with sliced fragrant strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, just a few blackberries, and some tropical sweetness from a few slices of ripe kiwi. Forget the fork! Pick up that beautiful tart slice with your fingers, and enjoy!

Why you’ll love this gluten free fruit tart recipe

With a gluten free shortcrust pastry at the base and a mild cream filling, the fresh fruit really shines in this tart. Instead of having to make pastry cream like in our gluten free eclairs or custard, like in our gluten free trifle, which requires tempering eggs and cooking on the stovetop, this recipe makes it easy. Here’s what makes this one special:

• The pastry at the base of this fruit tart is flaky and buttery, and melts in your mouth
• The filling is creamy and sweet, with hints of cheesecake flavor from vanilla and cream cheese
• The no-cook filling is a mixture of sweetened and whipped cream cheese and fresh whipped cream
• You can make it in stages, so there’s no stress, starting with the tart crust days before you plan to fill the fruit tart
• The filling does really well if it’s made a couple hours ahead of time and allowed to set for cleaner slices, but you can also serve the tart right away if you’re in a hurry
• You get to use the season’s best fruit, and only your favorites. If you hate kiwi but still want some of that green color, add some sprigs of fresh mint!

The ingredients you’ll need

The ingredients you need for the tart shell are the ones in our gluten free shortcrust pastry recipe, which is repeated in the recipe card below. Details on those ingredients and that recipe are in that post. The other ingredients you’ll need to fill and top this gluten free fruit tart are:

• Confectioners’ sugar: we use this finely ground sugar with added cornstarch to help prevent clumping to add sweetness without adding any texture to the smooth filling
• Cream cheese: I am heavily biased in favor of Philadelphia brand cream cheese, but as long as you use full fat cream cheese in the block (not the tub), you’ll still get that cheesecakey taste and creamy tang
• Vanilla extract: To add some depth of flavor, use the good stuff. If you really want to add vanilla flavor, try using vanilla bean paste instead.
• Kosher salt: Salt brightens the flavors and balances the sweetness
• Heavy whipping cream: this is whipped into soft peaks and folded into the cream cheese mixture
• Berries: I like hulled and sliced strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries for a variety of flavor, texture and color
• Kiwi: Peeled and sliced ripe kiwi adds pretty green color and some varied texture. If you don’t like kiwi, don’t use them! For added green color, try adding some sprigs of fresh mint
• Apricot or apple jelly: We use a pastry brush to brush on either mostly clear, mild-tasting jelly on the fruit once it’s on top of the tart filling to add shine and maintain moisture.

How to make a gluten free fruit tart

This recipe has 3 distinct parts: the pastry shell, the creamy filling, and the fruit topping. We cover all the details of how to make the pastry shell in our recipe for gluten free shortcrust pastry. Here’s how you make the filling and the fruit:

To make the filling

You’ll need some sort of electric mixer to make a smooth filling, but even the smallest, least powerful hand mixer will work just fine here. We’ll make the filling in either the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or a large bowl with a hand mixer.

1. Place all but about 2 tablespoons of 1 cup of heavy whipping cream in your mixing bowl, and whip on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. That should take about 5 minutes.
2. If you go too far and end up with cream that looks bumpy or curdled, just whip in a tiny more cream and it will smooth things out.
3. Add the confectioners’ sugar, and continue to beat until you have stiff, glossy peaks.
4. Transfer the whipped cream to a separate, large bowl and place the whipped cream in the refrigerator to chill while you whip the cream cheese.
5. In the same large mixing bowl, place an 8 ounce block of regular cream cheese (it must be at room temperature, or it won’t whip smooth), vanilla extract, a bit of salt and the reserved 2 tablespoons cream. Whip the cream cheese mixture on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).
6. Now, combine the whipped cream from the refrigerator with the whipped cream cheese mixture in 2 parts: For the first part, whisk the whipped cream into the cream cheese. For the second part, fold it into the filling carefully until everything is uniformly combined.

To assemble the tart

This is the fun part, where you put the filling in your baked and cooled tart shell, and then decorate it with beautiful, ripe fruit.

1. Scoop the filling onto the browned and cooled tart crust, and use an offset or silicone spatula to spread it into an even layer.
2. Decorate the top with the fruit in whatever pattern you like. Sometimes, I add the fruit by variety, creating concentric circles starting on the outer edge and going all the way around, and then nesting the next fruit variety in another circle until I reach the center. Other times, I just randomly scatter fruit. Whatever looks beautiful to you.
3. Use a pastry brush to paint the tops of the fruit with a light layer of clear apple or apricot jelly. If your jelly has been refrigerated, you’ll have to warm it briefly in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl. Don’t heat it for more than a couple seconds, or it will boil!
4. You can slice and serve the tart immediately. For a cleaner slice, place the assembled fruit tart in the refrigerator for about an hour to allow the filling to set before slicing and serving.

Gluten free fruit tart tips & tricks

Only choose fully ripe fruit

Since it can be hard to judge the ripeness of certain fruits, particularly at the start of that fruit’s season, I try to go by smell. Ripe strawberries will smell, well, like strawberries enough that you can tell if they’re ripe enough just by smelling near the carton in the store.

If your blueberries aren’t ripe enough, as long as they are blue in color, they will ripen a bit off the vine if kept at room temperature. Unfortunately, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries won’t ripen off the vine, so choose carefully!

Eat with your hands!

Any time I serve a pie or tart that has a chilled filling and a pastry-style crust, like gluten free pumpkin pie or this fruit tart, no matter how tender the crust is, it can be hard to serve a properly chilled filling with a pastry shell that is easily cut with a fork. So I encourage everyone to pick up the slice of tart or pie—and eat it with their hands!

Make sure your crust is fully baked

Be sure to use some sort of pie weights (ceramic pie weights are great, but so are dried beans) on top of parchment paper when you first bake the crust, so it doesn’t puff up. Then bake your pastry crust until it’s lightly golden brown all over, with some darker brown spots, and dry to the touch. If the crust is not fully baked, it may get soggy after you add the cream cheese and whipped cream filling.

Gluten free fruit tart ingredients and substitution suggestions

Gluten free dairy free fruit tart

I’ve never found a dairy-free cream cheese alternative that I really love to replace that ingredient in the filling recipe. There are many alternatives available on the market today, including one from Miyoko’s Kitchen, and if you like the taste of one of those, I recommend trying it.

For the heavy whipping cream, you can use the drained cream from a chilled can of coconut milk, or try Silk brand dairy free heavy whipping cream alternative. For dairy free suggestions for the butter in the shortcrust pastry, please see that post (I like Miyoko’s Kitchen or Melt brand vegan butter).

Gluten free egg free fruit tart

The only egg in this recipe is the yolk used in the shortcrust pastry recipe. Please see the shortcrust pastry recipe post for full information, but I recommend trying a melted tablespoon of vegan butter in place of the egg yolk. You can just skip brushing the raw tart crust with the egg white before baking.

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