Custard Fruit Tart w/ Graham Cracker Crust

I was trying to come up with a nice culinary surprise last night for Asa while he was at his soccer game, and realized that custard is a double whammy -- he loves it, and I've never tried making it before! So I looked up a bunch of different recipes, took the elements of each that seemed nicest, and hacked something together that actually turned out quite delicious, and extremely easy.

Graham cracker crust: I roughly used this recipe, but had to change around the proportions a bit and add a little extra flavor. I made enough to fill one round 8" cake pan and a small heart-shaped pie tin (see photo), so a little more than if you're just making one pie.

Ingredients
2.5 cups crushed graham crackers (I used "honey graham crackers" to good effect)
~3/8 cup sugar
10 Tbsp. melted butter
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg (optional)
1/8 tsp. allspice (optional)

Directions (Graham cracker crust)
Preheat oven to 375F. Crumble up graham crackers in a bowl. I mostly did this by crushing them between my fingers, and then used the back of a large wooden spoon to mush them up more finely. It's OK if it isn't all a fine powder by the end, so long as there are no large pieces.

Add in sugar, butter, and spices. Blend together until the mixture has an even consistency throughout. Spread evenly in the cake pan (no need to grease it beforehand). I did this slowly, patting the mixture down firmly with my fingers, in order to get it to be spread evenly. Make sure you have enough to go up the sides of the cake pan, as well.

Bake on top rack of oven for 5-6 minutes. Remove and let it cook for a while. After it was no longer scalding hot, I relocated the tins to the fridge so that they'd be chillin' while I made the custard.

Custard: This turned out to be pretty easy! I forget which recipe I used most heavily of the ones I found online, but I make no claims to having completely invented this one:

Ingredients (Custard)
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk

Directions (Custard)
To separate yolks from whites: crack egg over a cup, and pour yolks from one half of the shell to the other, letting the whites (clear goop at this point) pour down into the cup. When most of it is off the yolk, throw the yolk into a bowl. Repeat with the other egg.

Whisk together yolks, sugar, flour until the mixture has an even consistency. (1/4 cup sugar makes a pretty sweet custard. If you want it to be less sweet, vary sugar amount accordingly.) It's going to look kind of dry at this point, but that's alright.

Now heat up milk in a saucepan until it's too hot for you to comfortably hold your finger in it for more than a second or two. Slowly pour it in to the mixture while whisking together. At this point it's like thick milk with clumps in it.

Pour mixture into saucepan and add vanilla. Stir it slowly while heating over low heat. After 2-3 minutes, it should start getting pretty solid. When it's the consistency you like, take it off the heat.

Spoon the custard onto your pie crust(s), and smooth out the top with a spatula. Place a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the custard, and pat it down a little bit so that it's firmly on there. (The point of this is to keep a gross film from forming.) Return the filled pie crust(s) to the fridge at this point to give the custard a chance to cool down.

To top it off nicely, chop up whatever fruits you want for a topping (kiwis and strawberries make for a beautiful tart -- sadly I had no strawberries this time). Heat up some light-colored jam (I used apricot) over low heat, stirring it to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the saucepan and burning, until it's pretty liquid. Remove the tarts from your fridge, take off the plastic wrap, and place your fruits on top of the tart (it looks nicest, I think, if they're all in one layer, but that's up to you). Brush the liquified jam over the tart evenly, and chill the tart. If you want to eat it right away, just stick it in the freezer for a couple of minutes and the jam will cool down right away.

EAT!

It was late, so we didn't attack the big one, which stayed in the fridge with plastic wrap on the custard. I like having a lot of custard in my fruit tarts, so the next day I added another layer of custard to the big fruit tart, this time with no vanilla to cut down on the vanilla taste.