Pie Chart Fruit Tart

Recently, Wilgubeast posted a pie chart of the projects posted so far in 2014 and since we had a Pi Day Pie Contest and a Data Visualization Contest going on, I thought I would make something that would fit both contests and be a delicious and thematic treat for the office. I was inspired by this instructable from a few years ago, but this is my own take on the pie chart pie concept.

Of course, you can make your pie chart fruit tart with any sections you want, a fun one might be to take a poll of guests before an event about what toppings they want and portion your sections of the pie chart appropriately.

You can make whatever crust you want, but I used a pre-made pie crust, since I had one in the freezer already and I don't have a tart pan. This would be ever better with an actual tart crust or a graham cracker crust.

In my case, I followed the instructions on the package of my pie crust. I pricked a lot of holes in the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork, then baked it in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes, until it was golden brown. I knew that the filling I was using would not need to be baked, so I made sure the crust was baked completely.

For the filling, I used the recipe from this instructable which is a cream cheese based filling instead of a custard or pudding filling. I love this filling because it's easy, and it tastes like cheese cake!

For the filling, I used the following:

-16 oz cream cheese

-1/2 cup unsalted butter

-2 cups of sugar

I combined the cream cheese and butter in a big mixing bowl then added the sugar a little at a time, mixing it in thoroughly before adding more. When everything was mixed together, I added the filling into the cooled pie crust and flattened out the top with a spatula.

Then I licked everything off the spatula because it is so good.

For the topping, I knew what colors I would need to I made of list of the colors and then fruits I knew of that were that color, then I went to the grocery store to see what I could find. My list looked like this:

Orange-oranges, peaches, nectarines, apricots

Yellow-pineapple, bananas, lemons

Red-berries of some kind

Green-grapes, kiwi

Blue-blueberries

Teal-???

I had pretty solid options for everything except the teal portion, so I decided to go to the store and see what my options were. I ended up with pineapples, strawberries, kiwi, blueberries and canned apricots for the orange portion. I wanted fresh ones, since I didn't want to use oranges and the peaches and nectarines weren't orange enough. Of course, I would have preferred fresh ones, but Safeway didn't have any.

To arrange the toppings, I marked out the sections by lightly running a knife through the filling to mark out sections, using the pie chart as a reference and cut the fruit to fit each section. For the teal section I had to get a little creative because there aren't a lot of teal fruits (if you can think of any, please let me know!) so I ended up cutting the blueberries in half. Since they are green on the inside, it sort of looks teal, or at least is easy to tell it's a different section.

This is a great dessert for people who appreciate pie charts or if people have different fruit preferences. Either way, it's a very exciting looking dish and it tastes great!