A Simple Fruit Heart for Mother’s Day

If you want to make something delicious for your mom, but are not in the mood for a complicated layer cake, how about this simple fruit heart with pie crust? I used nectarines as filling, but feel free to go with any other fruit. Which fruit is your mom’s favorite? Unfortunately I couldn’t make this fruit heart for my mom for Mother’s Day, she lives too far away. However, today is a very special day for me, it is our ten-year anniversary. So I thought this is also the perfect occasion to make a heart. As soon as I got it out of the oven, my husband had googly eyes and asked whether he could have a piece. So I kept my photo shoot to a minimum to relieve him from his pain.

It felt like seconds and he had inhaled about half of it. As soon as he had polished his plate, he asked for a second helping. This is very tpyical. You know, often I take forever to make a complicated layer cake, which takes hours and hours and he will then say “Yeah, it was ok.” But if I make a super simple cake that does not require ten million ingredients and about ten different components, he will say this was the best cake I had made in a long time. Men, huh? I guess I will just take it as a compliment.

I added a bit of ground almonds to the pie crust. This is completely optional. However, I really like the extra flavor and crunch this adds. As written before, I went with nectarines, but you may also go with apples, pears, apricots, cherries, berries, anything you like. This heart is really versatile, just pick whatever suits you and you like. Have fun baking it!

Print Recipe

A Simple Fruit Heart

Prep Time: 45min – Cooking Time: 25-28min

This simple fruit heart can be filled with any fruit you like and is prepared with pie crust. I made mine with nectarines, some almonds and rosemary.

Ingredients

• Pie Crust
• 200 grams of all-purpose flour
• 50 grams of ground almonds (you can replace with same amount of flour)
• 50 grams of regular sugar
• 150 grams of butter
• About 50-70 grams of ice-cold water
• 
  
• Filling
• 150 grams of apple sauce
• About 4-5 nectarines (you may also go with apples, pears, apricots, cherries, berries, etc.)
• 100 grams of apricot jam
• 50-100 grams of sliced almonds
• One rosemary branch

Instructions

1

For the pie crust mix flour, almonds and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter in cubes and work into crumbs. Add about 50 grams of water and work into a ball, you may need to add a little more water. Do not overwork dough, it is OK if you still see some chunks of butter. Chill covered for half an hour or overnight.

2

Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface. Be sure to move it in between and to flour so it doesn't stick. Once you have a large thin circle, fold it in half and cut out the curve typical for a heart. Open up and see if you like the shape, if not, re-roll the dough until you have a heart you like. The heart should still fit on a baking sheet. Mine was roughly 35cm in the longest part. Cut a very long stripe of 2 cm with the leftovers and place all around the outer edge of the heart. Move the heart to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

3

Spread the apple sauce on top of the heart. Cut fruits in very thin slices and decorate heart with it (see pictures). As stated I used nectarines, but you can also use other fruits.

4

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Shortly heat apricot jam and brush the entire heart with it. Sprinkle the outer parts with the sliced almonds and removed rosemary needles. Bake for about 25-28min or until golden brown.

5

If you have leftover pie crust, you can cut out circles and fill half with jam or any other filling you like, place the second circle on top and seal with a fork. I made tiny hearts this way.

Notes

You can prepare the heart the day before, cover tightly and leave at room temperature.