So it was Declan's turn this week. He had been toying around with a few ideas, but decided on this little fruit tart. I had made it before and brought it into school. It was a popular one, and most of it can be made in advance, only assembly required in the morning.
Declan is a very capable cook, and I know it sounds funny, but a great recipe follower. (Not everyone is!) He is faithful to the instructions and the results are always exactly as they are supposed to look in the picture. He has great patience for time consuming recipes. He makes the tastiest and smoothest mashed potato, I am convinced it is because of how long he perseveres with the masher, but he won't give away his secret!
Anyway, apart from the strawberry topping, there are two stages to this recipe, neither take that long.
Declan doubled the ingredients below to make one large strawberry pie and six small ones topped with raspberries and blueberries. But the recipe below is for one big one.
First make the pastry. I use my old reliable recipe that goes into the food processor.
200g plain flour
100g cold butter diced
1 beaten egg.
I whizz up te flour and butter until crumbly and then while still mixing, pour in the beaten egg until it forms a dough. Stop the machine as soon as it comes together.
Roll out the dough onto a floured board and line greased and floured tin with about 1/2 cm thick pastry.
Chill the pastry in the tin in the fridge while you make the patisserie cream.
You will need
5 large or 6 medium egg yolks
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 T cornflour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 t cognac
1 T butter
1 T double cream
First put the sugar and yolks into a mixer and beat until the mixture is very pale and thick. It needs about 4--5 minutes in the mixer. You could use an electric hand whisk or indeed a balloon whisk, but good luck with the arm muscles!!
In the meantime, heat the milk in a saucepan until just below boiling point.
Into the sugar and egg mixture, add the cornflour and mix on low speed. Keep on low and gradually add the hot, so as not to cook the eggs. When all the milk is added, return the mixture to a saucepan and cook on a low to medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture gets really thick, like thick yoghurt. If it starts to curdle, just take a whixk and beat furiously until it becomes smooth!
When thickened, remove from the heat and add the vanilla, cognac, butter and cream, and stir to combine.
Pass the mixture through a sieve into a bowl and cover with cling film so that it is directly on the surface of the patisserie cream. This stops it from forming a skin.
Cool and then chill in the fridge until you are ready to use it,
In the meantime, bake the pastry blind.
I do this by covering the pastry with parchment, (you could use foil either) making sure it goes up the sides, and fill with dry chick peas.
Bake at 180c for 20 minutes then remove the paper and beans, prick the base a few times with a fork and continue to bake for a further 5 minutes. This crisps up the pastry and makes it light golden brown.
Take it out and cool.
To assemble, pour the cream mixture into the pastry shell and top with berries. You don't need sugar.
Then heat a few tablespoons of apricot jam in a pan with a teaspoon of water until it is liquidy, and brush onto the tart and fruit with a pastry brush to glaze.
Great for summer dinner parties and of course office coffee breaks!
Just before I go, I want to fill you in on Daniel's recipe for Strawberry Shortbread.
We were in my parents house last week one of the really sunny days, and Dad had the BBQ going. Daniel threw on a few shortbread biscuits.
Robyn was in charge of strawberries, Daniel did the biscuits and cream and I was on wash up. Nice!
Strawberry Shortbread
In a food proccessor put
75g plain flour
50g cold butter
25g sugar
Blitz until a dough forms, roll out, cut into fingers and bake at 180c on a lined tin for about 8 minutes until light golden.
Serve with strawberries (sugared) and cream.
Yum!!
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