Fruit tarts are ripe and fresh with buttery, brittle crusts.

The cold came so fast that the false spring of earlier weeks was, we can only hope, flash-frozen beneath that brittle crust.

And for dessert there was a beguiling caramelized fig tart with a thin, brittle crust.

It is topped with a thin, brittle crust of caramelized sugar.

The snow had lost its brittle crust, and here and there the ice formations were melted to frigid water by the sunlight.

They were formed from slow-moving lava that had a thin and brittle crust.

Wind-driven snow built a brittle crust on one side of his cloak.

The ground crunched beneath his feet, as though it were only a brittle crust.

The brittle crust of snow crunched under his feet.

Much of the area is soft sand covered with "sabkha" - a brittle crust consisting mostly of salt.