Madison’s Tart bakery likes to go out on a limb with flavor. Baker/owners Carissa Mangerson and Ana Luyet are willing to ask hard questions — like whether corn is an overlooked vegetable for dessert. Try Tart’s sweet and salty corn cookies with vanilla ice cream and you’ll start to think about corn differently. They bring to mind the flavor of sweet corn with an unexpectedly strong dash of salt. “ We edge towards a saltier lane of cookie,” Mangerson says.

She and Luyet started Tart as a ready-to-bake business 10 years ago. They make and sell small batches of frozen dough for scones and biscuits, as well as premade tarts and galettes, both sweet and savory, to be baked at home.

Mangerson and Luyet met as parents of Midvale Elementary students and realized they had a lot in common in all things food. They had a similar approach to batching and freezing food to make cooking easier. They were also both devotees of pastry chef Christina Tosi, who popularized putting more salt in sweets.

Luyet and Mangerson wanted to take on something new while remaining stay-at-home parents and started by selling frozen cookie dough. Soon they added dough for scones and began preparing galettes.

These days they work out of the Pasture and Plenty Makeshop production kitchen. While they’re always looking for more freezer space, they feel the current version of Tart is the perfect size. But the pressure is there. Customers often ask when they’ll start to sell in bigger stores, or ship product. Lately they’ve grown more comfortable with the answer, “probably never.”

Tart keeps its suppliers local. For their ice cream sandwiches, they use Chocolate Shoppe. The two also use local produce for their galettes and other pastries. Mangerson and Luyet want to “rely on our farmers, keep it local, keep it special and unique instead of trying to explode it.”

Not that they haven’t made things complicated for themselves before. Prior to this year, they changed the flavors of their goods every month. A local food industry veteran suggested that quarterly might be a better idea. It was.

As Tart grew and switched to a wholesale model, Mangerson and Luyet dropped the cookie dough, focusing instead on the ice cream sandwich, their place to be creative and experiment. “Some of our favorites are the ones that are sometimes the hardest sell,” says Luyet, mentioning a peanut butter cookie with some cayenne in it. “So it’s a little bit of a kick. It’s warming.” They pair that with peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.

The classic chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream, or a sugar cookie with funfetti, are often available. But for anyone who likes salt, sweet and variety, watch for Tart’s seasonal flavor: ginger molasses with orange zest will be arriving soon.

Tart’s ice cream cookies are sold at Cafe Domestique-Willy Street; other goods (including the ice cream sandwiches) are available at Meat People Butcher, Brennan’s Market and Pasture and Plenty.