The art of tarts

The Sunday after Thanksgiving was balmy, warm and sunny, even more so in the walled art garden and patio dining area hugging the Guglhupf Bakery & Patisserie in Durham. In the bustling bakery section, surrounded by glass-cased tarts, guglhupf cakes, handmade breads and other treats, I met owner Claudia Cooper and pastry chef Antonia Manzi for coffee and a long chat.

Inside and out, the place was full of life, a vibrant coffee bar scene packed with families, students and couples enjoying morning coffee, breakfast breads, Danish, entrées of omelettes, quiche and the like. Guglhupf feels like a European neighborhood café, and many regulars from Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh were there that sunny Sunday, greeting one other and the staff.

As we waited for Manzi to join us, Cooper admired the eclectic, leafy aesthetic of the café’s indoor-outdoor dining spaces. “It’s all the things I love,” he said. “Old buildings, gardens, foodbrought together in one spot.”

Cooper worked as a baking apprentice in her native Germany and clearly has a passion for time-honored traditional German baking methods, but also for a blend of casual but classy lunch and dinner fare. In October, Guglhupf opened for dinner five nights a week. Reviews were so outstanding and customers so numerous, it’s best to reserve a table in advance.

Manzi trained at the Culinary Institute of America before becoming Guglhupf’s pastry chef. “The great thing about German ideas of baking and bakeries is that the sturdy breads, the delicate pastries, the holiday specialties all come from the same kitchen and ovens,” she said.

Cooper and Manzi appreciate American pies, but they have found their niche in distinctive European offerings, such as tarts. What is the difference between a pie and a tart? While lemon meringue pie and lemon tarts (which some professionals see as a form of lemon bars) have similar ingredients and structure, they have different crusts and baking times. The biggest difference is in the dough: Tarts at Guglhupf usually have a sweet pate sucree base, which includes and egg and leavening; piecrusts are all about the butter, shortening and liquid. Both demand gentle handling, especially at the rolling stage.

Manzi’s tarts reflect her training as a cook. She cooks down her Danish fruit fillings with a house-made reduction of cherry juice to bind the fruit. She combines new flavors with old techniques, as in her brioche-style cranberry roll, using orange peel or the classic Bûche de Noël with chestnut cream and ganache bark, made with chocolate and heavy cream.

The freshest local ingredients yield stellar results. For example, the classic French Apple Tart recipe listed at right uses nothing but eggs, milk, butter and apples from nearby farms.

Cook’s note: This recipe, a favorite at the bakery since it opened in 1998, is ideal for working as a team, especially if you have extra hands on deck for the holidays. One person attends to the tart shell, another cooks the cream and someone else preps the local apples. You can have this beautiful delicacy in the oven in no time. I think its best served on the same day it’s made. Otherwise, chill it until ready to serve.