Blueberry Tart Limousin
Prep Time 30 minutes 
Cook Time 35 minutes 
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes 
Servings 6Ingredients
For the pâte sablée (a sweet crumbly shortcrust pastry)
- 250 gr plain flour
- 150 gr unsalted butter
- 50 gr icing sugar
- 1 egg
- 30 ml cold water
- 1 pinch salt
For the filling
- 500 gr blueberries preferably wild if you can find them
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 80 gr caster sugar
- lemon juice
- 30 gr ground almonds for dusting the tart base
Equipment
Instructions
1. Make the dough
- Begin by preparing the pâte sablée. In a large bowl, rub the flour and cold, cubed butter together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar and a pinch of salt, then mix in the egg yolk and cold water. Knead gently until the dough forms a smooth ball. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for 30 minutes. This resting period ensures a tender, crumbly pastry.
2. Prepare the tart base
- Preheat your oven to 210°C (410°F). On a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled pastry to fit your 28 cm tart ring. Place the tart ring on a baking tray with a baking mat. Gently line the tart dish with the dough. Prick the base lightly with a fork. Sprinkle a thin layer of ground almonds over the base to prevent the pastry from becoming soggy with the juicy berries.
3. Prepare the filling
- In a bowl, gently toss the blueberries with caster sugar, plain flour (or cornstarch), and the lemon juice. The flour will help thicken the berry juices while baking, and the lemon juice brightens the flavour beautifully.
4. Assemble the tart
- Spread the sugared berries evenly over the pastry base, ensuring every corner is filled. Sprinkle a little extra caster sugar over the top to give a lovely caramelised finish while baking.
5. Bake to golden perfection
- Bake in the preheated oven for around 30 minutes. You want the pastry golden and crisp, and the berries bubbling with a glossy finish.
6. Cool and serve
- Allow the tart to cool slightly before slicing. Serve warm or at room temperature, delicious on its own or with a dollop of crème fraîche or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Notes
- Using wild blueberries (myrtilles sauvages) is traditional and best if you can source them, offering a perfect balance of sweet and tart. If fresh are unavailable, frozen can be used but drain well to avoid excess juice.
- The lemon juice is essential to elevate the berries’ freshness.
- The sugared flour mixture in the filling keeps the tart from becoming soggy.
About this recipe
When we visited Limoges and looked at the bakery windows, we noticed something they had that we don’t see much in our region: the blueberry tart. We obviously had to take one home. It was different from any fruit tart we’d had before, and we were both completely taken by the intensity of the wild blueberries. Bright, jammy, lightly floral and so much more flavourful than regular blueberries. Paired with the buttery crumbly pastry, it was a combination that stuck with us. That’s why I needed to share this french blueberry tart recipe with you!
Where blueberry tart comes from
This tart doesn’t have a single origin story. There’s no named pastry chef, no specific date and no famous incident. It’s simply a mountain dessert that grew naturally out of the landscape. Wild blueberries are characteristic of the mountain zones of the Limousin, from the Monédières hills to the Millevaches plateau, and the picking of them has shaped the rhythm of rural life there for decades. When you have an abundance of a fruit this good growing on your doorstep, you obviously make a tart!
In France the blueberry tart is a traditional seasonal dessert found across the mountain regions, from the Limousin to the Vosges, the Alps, and the Massif Central. In the Vosges it’s called “tarte aux brimbelles,” which is just a regional dialect name for the same berry. In the Hautes-Vosges specifically, it’s the dessert you’ll find in almost every farm restaurant, a staple of the ferme-auberge tradition. Each region makes it slightly differently, some add a custard layer, some add ground almonds, some keep it completely plain, but the spirit is always the same: wild fruit, simple pastry, very little else.
Wild blueberries vs regular blueberries
This is worth knowing before you start. The blueberries used in a traditional french blueberry tart recipe are wild blueberries. These are smaller and darker than the commercial cultivated blueberries you find in supermarkets. The flavour difference is significant. Wild blueberries are more intense, slightly more tart, more deeply fruity, and they stain everything that deep inky purple the moment you bite into them. Cultivated blueberries are milder and sweeter, which produces a completely different result.
If you can find wild blueberries, use them. They’re definitely worth making the extra effort to hunt down. If you can’t, the smallest, darkest cultivated blueberries you can find will still make a very good tart, just a slightly different one. Wild blueberry picking in France generally runs from mid-July to mid-September, so summer is when this blueberry tart recipe easy version really makes sense.
The simplicity of this blueberry tart recipe
The blueberry tart recipe from the Limousin is deliberately simple. A crumbly pâte sablée base, a generous layer of tart blueberries, a touch of sugar and lemon to lift the fruit and that’s all there is to it. More traditional fruit tarts have custard, pastry cream or another elaborate filling to make up for a lack of flavour in the fruit, but due to the wonderful taste of the wild blueberries, this tart needs nothing to help it make it better. This blue berry tart recipe does depend on the quality of the berries, which is why it’s a seasonal recipe rather than a year-round one.
The pâte sablée base is the right choice here because its crumbly, sandy texture gives you a contrast with the soft collapsed berries on top. Shortcrust is firmer and less rich and puff pastry would be too complicated for a filling this simple.
The key to good pâte sablée is cold butter and minimal handling. If you overwork it, the pastry develops gluten and loses the crumbly texture that makes it so distinguished and good. Work quickly, chill the dough before rolling, and handle it as little as possible.
How to bake blueberry tart
A french blueberry tart recipe this simple needs a tart ring that conducts heat evenly to the pastry base and gives you that clean border that makes a French tart look like a French tart. You must know by now, when it comes to tarts, I love using tart rings paired with a perforated baking mat. It makes the release clean once the tart is cooled down, which is important for a tart that is this delicate.
How to eat Blueberry Tart
You can eat this tart best at room temperature, ideally the same day it’s baked, when the pastry is still crisp and the berries are still a bit jammy. A spoonful of crème fraîche alongside is the traditional accompaniment in the mountain regions, the creaminess works really well with the acidity of the fruit and the richness of the pastry. Vanilla ice cream is also very good if you’re eating it slightly warm!
Share your feedback and spread the love!
If you try this recipe, I’d love to hear how it turns out! Leave a ★★★★★ rating and your thoughts in the comments, it helps fellow French foodies discover this recipe too. Snap a photo and tag @obviously.french on Instagram. Come talk about it in our Facebook group. And don’t forget to save this recipe to Pinterest so you’ll always have it handy for your next French-inspired meal!
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