The French Pantry's Desserts

I fell in love with The French Pantry's Farmer Cheese, White Chocolate, Blueberry tart. It took me about 4 tries, but I finally duplicated it. I did opt for a Pate Sucre, while theirs has a plain crust.

I first made it as a regular tart but decided I liked a thicker slice, so I make it in a quiche pan. This is a prime example of my memory lapses. I forget to turn the oven temp down and the tart browned on top.

Here's my recipe:

I use a food processor to mix up the crust and the filling. I bake it in a 9” removable bottom 4”deep tin quiche pan, but a 9 or 8” spring form pan or a deep 9” pie plate should work too. You could even try baking the recipe and using a Publix pre-made pie crust. It wouldn’t be a cookie crust, but then the French Pantry’s tart crust isn’t a sweet crust either.


Tart Crust (Bake @ 375º for 20-25 minutes)
1 cup + 2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
3 Tbsp sugar
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp of Baking Powder
6 Tbsp of very cold butter in 1” cubes
1 Large or extra large egg
1 Tbsp of Lemon Juice
2 Tbsp of jelly of the same flavor as your berries. I use Schmucker’s no sugar added Blueberry Preserves.

Put the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and chunks of butter in the food processor with the cutting blade and pulse until the butter is the size of a large pea. Add the egg and lemon juice and pulse until it just comes together. It doesn’t need to form a ball. Remove the dough from the processor, add chill it. Remove from the frig and roll it out and line the pan with it. I use a tin tart pan so I have to brush the pan with butter using a pastry brush so the tart won’t stick. If you are using a regular pie pan, I would just spray it with PAM or similar. I don’t use PAM on any of my baking pans because the lecithin leaves a film and eventually everything sticks to it. Lecithin buildup will ruin non-stick surfaces too. Prick the dough with a fork. Line the dough with aluminum foil sprayed with PAM and add rice, dry beans or pie weights to hold down the crust. Bake for 20 minutes, remove the crust from the oven and lift out the foil with the beans. Put the crust bake in the oven for another 5 minutes. Remove crust from the oven and paint the bottom and sides with the jelly/preserves. You can double and triple this recipe to make more crusts. Store them in plastic bags in the freezer for later. If you are baking the tart after the crust, be sure to turn down the oven to 350º to bake the tart.

TART FILLING (bake at 350º)
I have never used a premade pie shell, but it should work and I am guessing a single recipe portion of the tart filling would be about right. For a spring form or quiche tart pan that’s deeper use a double recipe. The recipe was written originally for a tart pan which is 10” in diameter but only 1 ½” deep. I wanted a deeper tart, so I doubled the recipe and used the quiche pan.

Single Recipe
½ cup heavy cream
1 ½ ozs of Baker’s White Chocolate grated
1- 7 ½ oz package of Farmer Cheese
¼ cup of Splenda or sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Corn Starch
¼ tsp Lemon zest
1 ½ c Berries (I use fresh and they don’t get mushy or release a lot of liquid)

Doubled Recipe
1 cup Heavy cream
3 ozs of Baker’s White Chocolate grated
2- 7 ½ oz package of Farmer Cheese
½ cup of Splenda or sugar
2 Eggs
2 tsp Corn Starch
½ tsp Lemon zest
1 ½ c Berries (I use fresh and they don’t get mushy or release a lot of liquid)


Grate the white chocolate into a heat proof bowl, Heat half the heavy cream until hot, but not boiling. Pour the hot cream over the white chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. Add the other half of the cold cream. Put the Farmers cheese, splenda, cornstarch and lemon zest in the processor bowl and pulse until cheese and ingredients are slightly mixed. Add the eggs and pulse again. Add the cream and pulse until mixed and smooth.
Pour the berries into the pie shell coated with jelly and then pour the cheese mixture over the berries.

Bake @ 350º for 20-25 minutes for a single recipe or 40-45 for the doubled recipe. It’s done when the center has a little jiggle but the sides are set. Over baking it won’t hurt it.

Williams-Sonoma sells the tin quiche pans with removable bottoms for under $10. They are 9” or so in diameter and 4” deep. Don’t buy non-stick or the shallow tart pans. You want the deeper quiche pans with the shiny silver surface for a crisp crust and a deep filling. These are also the best pans for baking quiches.