We’re in the home stretch of Project Pastry Queen, just a few weeks left. This week, Emily of A Gilt Nutmeg chose to turn back the clock and make a beautiful peach tart from the early days of the project, the Fredericksburg Peach Cream Cheese Tart.

A sweet, ripe juicy peach is one of summer’s gifts. I don’t want to seem ungrateful but let’s be totally honest, here. Summer kind of owes it to us. Triple digit heat index? No rain for months and then it floods? A potential hurricane?

But we’ll take it.

This week’s tart is not just for summer. As written, it showcases the sweet Texas peach but it also makes a wonderful fall tart when made with apples and cinnamon.

But like all of the desserts in The Pastry Queen, it’s Texas-sized. And beautiful.

The last time I made the peach tart for PPQ, I only made a half-recipe of the filling and used a 9.5-inch tart pan. I eliminated the egg and cream in the dough and added just enough water for it to come together like a normal pie crust. Leftover pie crust can be frozen for future desserts. Or you can be even more resourceful and make homemade pop tarts 🙂

For the original recipe, check out A Gilt Nutmeg. To see how the other PPQ members tackled the tart, check out the Project Pastry Queen blog.