Amazing tart cake design ideas

What's in a name? When it comes to dessert it can be a lot, and nowhere is that potentially more confounding than with tarts and tortes, so close in sound but so different from what may confront you on the plate.
A fruit tart, for instance, has a pie-like pastry shell -- bottom and sides, no top crust -- while a fruit torte looks like a flat cake with fruit peeking out the sides or perhaps the top. A tart is often served in small, individual sizes that are easily consumed at one sitting.
My all-time favorite, scrawled on a 3-by-5-inch index card and spotted with age, is very rich. But it is truly memorable in taste, almost like a shortbread!

A tart is a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry. The pastry is usually shortcrust pastry; the filling may be sweet or savoury, though modern tarts are usually fruit-based, sometimes with custard. Tartlet refers to a miniature tart; an example would be egg tarts. The categories of 'tart', 'flan', 'quiche', and 'pie' overlap, with no sharp distinctions.

Tarts are typically free-standing with firm pastry base consisting of dough, itself made of flour, thick filling, and perpendicular sides while pies may have softer pastry, looser filling, and sloped sides, necessitating service from the pie plate.

There are many types of tarts, with popular varieties including Treacle tart, meringue tart, tarte tatin and Bakewell tart. Another popular tart flavour is jam tarts, which may be different colours depending on the flavour of the jam used to fill them.

The classic torte is less readily pinpointed because so many variations exist. Think of the rich chocolate Sachertorte and the equally delicious and desirable Linzertorte. What do they have in common? Not a lot to hang your toque blanche on, so the name alone will have to do.

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down tart, of apples, other fruit, or onions.
Savoury tarts include quiche, a family of savoury tarts with a mostly custard filling; German Zwiebelkuchen 'onion tart', and Swiss cheese tart made from Gruyere.