Stone-Fruit Tart with Thyme

This customizable recipe is great for showcasing summer stone fruit. Use whatever's ripe and gorgeous: nectarines, plums, pluots, apricots, peaches – about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 pounds total. (If you use peaches, peel them first.) For the tart shown, I used 6 medium nectarines, 4 biggish black plums, and 2 largish apricots. If your fruit isn't very sweet (or you want a sweeter tart), you can double the sugar sprinkled on before it goes in the oven. You can serve it room temperature or warm, with or without vanilla ice cream or a lightly sweetened dollop of crème fraîche.

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients

Lindsey Shere's short crust tart shell, blind-baked in a 9-inch tart pan as per instructions and cooled 

6 tablespoons apricot, peach or plum preserves

2 1/2 to 2 3/4 pounds ripe stone fruit – any combination of nectarines, peaches, plums, pluots and apricots

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon or so thyme leaves

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Spread the preserves evenly all onto the tart shell. Pit the fruit and cut each into 6 or 8 wedges, depending on the size. Make a circle of fruit (I started with nectarines) at the edge of the tart shell, setting each piece of fruit skin-side against the shell and pointy edge up, snuggling the wedges close together. Make another circle of fruit (using a different kind, if you like; I used plums next), just inside that circle, in the same fashion against the outer circle. Continue in this fashion (I used apricots next, then used a few nectarine wedges in the center) until the center is filled. 

2. Use a spoon to drizzle the melted butter over the fruit as evenly as possible, then sprinkle on the sugar and the thyme leaves. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the tips of the fruit are getting a little brown.