Before proceeding with the gluten-free pastry, here are some essential tips that also apply to pastry made with glutinous flours.

-To avoid overheating the butter (especially lactose-free butter, which seems more sensitive to hand heat than traditional butter), all the utensils we will use, the eggs, and the butter must be refrigerator cold.

-To facilitate butter absorption, cut it into small cubes and return it to the fridge until just before using it.

-Since gluten-free pastry, especially one made without thickeners, lacks elasticity, it will be necessary to place the final dough between two sheets of parchment paper, which will help us roll it to the desired thickness without problems and touch the dough as little as possible.

-Lastly, but not least, I recommend preparing the gluten-free pastry 12 hours before baking it. Indeed, I have noticed (since I haven’t used ready-made mixes containing thickeners, but one made by myself) that after resting for 12 hours in the coldest part of the fridge, the pastry is much more compact and manageable, so to speak.

Now, let’s get started. Good luck.

First, separate 2 yolks from their respective whites and set them aside.

Immediately sift the rice flour and cornstarch (or cornflour) together and pour them into a cold steel bowl from the fridge.

Add the sugar, salt, and butter cubes, and very quickly try to combine them for a few moments, forming a sort of sandy, coarse, ‘crumbly’ mixture.

Add the two yolks and, again quickly, try to incorporate them as much as possible into the butter and flour mixture. Only if we realize it’s impossible to incorporate all the flour, add a third yolk, as we know that eggs are not all the same.

It doesn’t matter if the mixture isn’t smooth or if the butter chunks are mostly still visible; the dough and especially the butter must not be overheated.

Immediately transfer the coarse dough to a sheet of parchment paper.

Cover with another sheet of parchment paper and press a bit to form a sort of

rectangle or square about a finger’s thickness, wrap it in cling film (without removing the parchment paper), and immediately place it in the coldest part of the fridge for 12 hours.

Now let’s prepare the gel we will use to glaze both the pastry and the fresh fruit.

Pour the water into a saucepan, add the lemon juice, sugar, starch (you can replace it with equally mild-tasting rice starch), and the washed and very finely grated lemon peel.

Thicken on the smallest burner over low heat (it will take about 10 minutes). Turn off the heat and let it cool. When we spread it on the tart and fresh fruit, it will be completely transparent and invisible.

After 12 hours, prepare the pan in which we will bake the pastry shell, i.e., without any filling.

Preheat the oven to 350°F

Take the pastry out of the fridge, place it on the worktable, remove the cling film, and quickly, with a rolling pin, roll it to a thickness of about 1/4 inch and a diameter suitable for the pan.

Place it in the 11-inch tart pan, level it, and smooth the edges gently, always without removing the parchment paper covering it.

Place the weight on the surface of the pastry and immediately in the preheated oven at mid-height.

Pay attention to the temperature and baking time because these gluten-free flours cook a bit faster and also tend to burn a bit more quickly.

After about 20 minutes, take the pan out of the oven, and very gently remove the weight and the sheet of parchment paper from the surface.

If you notice that the pastry tends to break, leave the parchment paper on the surface (without the beans or chickpeas) and put it back in the oven. We will think about browning it a bit on the surface under the grill without the paper on the surface later. I did this to brown only the surface edges, to give a bit of contrast to the green of the kiwis.

Finish baking, turn off the oven, and take it out of the oven immediately.

After 10 minutes, we will try to remove the paper from the surface, only if we haven’t succeeded in doing so earlier.

Let it sit for another hour before gently removing it from the pan. Gluten-free pastry doesn’t need to be necessarily amber-colored, but it usually stays a bit lighter than traditional ones.

After an hour, remove it from the pan and place it on the serving plate. When it is completely cool, we can proceed to prepare the fresh fruit.

Brush the tart with a bit of lemon jelly, using a brush, delicately.

First, peel the kiwis. Slice them and start placing them on the tart as in the photo or according to your taste (depending on their size, it may not be necessary to use them all)

Peel and slice one banana at a time (again, it may not be necessary to use both), moisten the slices with a little orange juice so they don’t oxidize, and finally, place them inside the tart.

Brush the fruit with the jelly (which will both glaze it and further protect it from oxidation from air contact), place the tart in a cake holder, and leave it at room temperature if it’s not too hot or in the fridge, remembering that the pastry will absorb some of the moisture released by the fruit, becoming softer the next day.

Additional Idea. You can serve the portions of tart with fresh whipped cream, or an orange cream, mandarin cream, sweet mandarin sauce, lemon cream, chocolate cream and many other sweet preparations that you can find on the blog, using the search magnifying glass.

Enjoy your meal