Strawberry Tart

Normally I don't post on Sunday's, but I am not sure if I will be able to post tommorow and also this Strawvberry Tart I made today was so so good I thought I will post this first, before I post my Thai Scampi which I prosmised I will do.

Every sunday we go to my inlaws place for sunday afternoon coffee and now a days if I have time I bake somthing and take there and if i don't bake, MIL buys something from the cake shop. That is why there is no picture of a slice, I took them without slicing.....

I have been waiting for the strawberry season, well here in the markets there was strawberries for a while but they were not sweet ones so I don't buy them and yesterday when I went to the market I saw these beautiful sweet looking ones I had to buy them.

I love these tarts, but have to confess I am not a huge fan of the pastry cream for its's eggy smell but then the rest of the family love them and they think it is just in my mind that there is a eggy smell.
Smell or no smell they are super yumm. Everybody her elove the pastry, cream and strawberries,
For the Sweet Tart Dough: Recipe from Doriee Greenspan book Baking.
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour.
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter very cold cut into small pieces ( I keep them in the freezer for 20 minutes)
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingridients and pulse untill the butter is coarsley cut in - you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas.
Stir the yolk, just to beak it up , and add it a little at a time, pulshing after each addition.
When the egg is in, process in long pulses about 10 seconds each - untill the dough, which looks granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds.
Just before you reach this stage, the soud of the machine working the dough will change -.


Turn the dough onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingridients that might have escaped mixing.

Now in the book it was a different method for bakjing.
But what i did is rolled the pastry , and lightly roll the pastry roud the rolling pin and carefully unroll it ove the flan ring or tart tin.
Use your thumb and index finger to push the pastry into the base and side of the mould.

Cut off the excess pastrt by rolling the rolling pin across the rim of the mould, then pinch up the edges with your thumb and index finger to crimp them about 5mm above the rim.
Refrigerate the tart case for at least 20 minutes before baking.

Prick the bottom of the pastry case in 5 or 6 places with a fork. Line it with grease proof paper and fill with baking beans or dried pulses.
Bake at 200°c for 10 minutes and them remove the paper with the beans and bake for futher 10 more minutes. Depending on the thickness of the pastry.
Cool the pasty shell.

Creame Patissiere ( from Michel Roux eggs book)
The pastry cream was thick but i would like it a biter thicker so I might add some 10 gm of more flour.
6 egg yoks
125 gm caster sugar
40 gm plain flour ( will ad 10 or 15 gm more next time)
500 ml milk
1 vannilla pod, split lengthways
60 gm of cold butter

Combine the egg yols and one third of the sugar in a bowl and whisk to a ligh ribbon consistency. Add the flour and whisk it in throughly
In a suacpan , heat the milk with the res of the sugar and the vanilla pod. As soon as it comes to the boil, pour it on to the egg mixture, stirring as you go. Mix well then return the mixture to the saucepan.
Bring to the boil over a medium heart, stirring continousley with teh whisk. Allow the mixture to bubble, still stirring for 2 minutes, then tip into a bowl.
Cook for five minutes and then add butter in small pieces and mix it well.
Cool and refrigerate. Before you put in the fridge, take a plastic foil and press it over the cream so that no sking will form on the top.

You can keep the patisserie cream in the fridge for 3 days, so it is handy if you make the cream the day before then you will have less work on the day itself.

Half Kilo Strawberris, sliced
Few tbsp strawberry jam

Assembling the tart.
Fill the tart shell with the pasrty Cream, arrange the strawberry slices the way you like.
Heat the jam ( i did in a MW) abd brush the tart top with the jam.
Enjoy then this delicous tart.