Obsttorte Fruit pie

One of Germany's finest! Obsttorte or fruit pie in English, comes with a variety of fruit garnishes. Sometimes you'll find them with just one fruit type.

Obsttorte pie

The often used shortcrust bottom is here a spongy biscuit mass, strong enough to hold the créme patissière and fruit. 

But don't feel restrained. I've seen these with whip cream and grated chocolate on top of the fruit. The variety of the obsttorte is very broad. 


Batter:

  • 125 g all purpose flour
  • 115 g icing sugar
  • 2 tsp (flattened) baking powder
  • 4 medium eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp wine vinegar (red or white)

Pastry cream:

  • 40 cl milk
  • 33 g cornstarch
  • 65 g sugar
  • 4 medium egg yolks
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean)

Fruit:

  • 4 slices of pine apple
  • 1 sliced kiwi
  • 200 g of strawberries

This is just a suggestion, you could use any fruit combination or only one fruit type.

Gelatin glaze (neutral):

  • 100 ml water 
  • 1 gelatin sheet
  • 5 g sugar
  • 1 tsp cornstarch

  1. Preheat oven at 175°C (convection).
  2. Grease the pan. Cut out a round piece of baking paper and cover the bottom with it. 
  3. Mix eggs, oil, vinegar, vanilla and sugar in a bowl. Combine flour with baking powder, sift and add to liquid mix. Using a hand mixer, blend until homogeneous, turn on high speed and continue for another minute or until smooth.
  4. Fill inverted pie pan with batter up to a little under the rim. If necessary, spread evenly with a spatula.
  5. Bake for 15 minutes. Let cake cool before removing from pan and then turn it upside down.

Pastry cream:

Start with peeling and slicing the fruit before making the pastry cream (custard).

  1. Mix egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale yellow using a hand mixer.
  2. Add the cornstarch and blend in with a whisk.
  3. Warm up milk with the vanilla. Pour some of it (about a small glass) in the milk-egg mix and stir until smooth. Put this mixture back into the pan on the stove with remaining, warm milk. Stir well with the wire whisk until it thickens. The moment you see a couple of large bubbles popping, the cream is done.
  4. Let it cool some, pour the custard inside the cake and spread evenly with a spatula. The custard cream shouldn't be too warm.
  5. Decorate with the fruit and refrigerate pie until completely cold.

Gelatin glaze:

  1. Put the gelatin in a glass with cold water.
  2. Warm up the 100 ml water with sugar and cornstarch. Stir. Let boil for a few seconds. Make sure the sugar is dissolved. Turn off stove.
  3. Take gelatin out of the glass, wring some to remove water. Add the gelatin in the warm sugar water. The latter shouldn't be warmer than 50°C at the time of adding the gelatin. 
  4. Wait for the mixture to thicken a little while the temperature goes down. Whisk if necessary. Using a pastry brush, cover the fruit of the obsttorte with the gelatin. Refrigerate.

Tools used: Hand mixer, silicone spatula, pastry brush, sieve.





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