Pate Sucree... beautiful pastry...

I finally got around to making the Pate Sucree recipe from Fanny of Foodbeam's website. It turned out beautifully and I am very pleased with the results. It has a lovely flavour and nice 'short' texture to keep me in pastry heaven for a long time. I did, however, make slight adjustments to suit my vanilla-loving tastebuds.

With the bounty of oranges and lemons sitting in the fruit basket, I made a St. Clements Curd to go with the pastry. Okay, okay... so it was orginally intended to be an Orange Curd, but halfway through (after a taste or two) I thought it lacked a certain depth. So, in went the juice of two lemons and an extra orange. I used the previous Lemon Curd recipe as a guide, but decided to go with two whole eggs instead of four egg yolks. (I already have 6 egg whites sitting in the fridge, so adding to that was not an option)

PATE SUCREE

300g Butter

160g Icing Sugar

Seeds from 1 Vanilla Pod

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

2 Eggs

500g Plain Flour

60g Ground Almonds

1/2 tsp Salt

Sieve Plain Flour, Almonds and Salt together. Keep aside.

Cream Butter and Icing sugar until light and fluffy. Add in Eggs one by one, beating well for 5 - 6 seconds after each addition. Add in Seeds from the Vanilla Pod and Essence. Beat for 5 - 6 seconds until incorporated. Gently fold in the Flour mixture until just combined.

*At this point, you can clingfilm and freeze any additional dough for use another time. This recipe makes enough dough to line about four 7 inch tart tins.

*As with any pastry, rest it for about 2 hours in/outside the fridge before using. I usually just leave it on the countertop before using so the dough just rests and does not harden, as it will in the fridge.

Pat dough into a 7 inch tart tin. Prick well and chill for at least half an hour. Remove from fridge, prick again and bake the tart shell blind for about 25 minutes on 150 Celsius. (If pastry starts swelling after 10 minutes, open the oven door and prick all over againto deflate it.) Cool baked tart shell in tin.

ST. CLEMENTS CURD

100ml Orange Juice, plus zest of 1 Orange

Juice of 2 Lemons

150g Caster Sugar

2 whole Eggs

70g Butter, cubed

Grated rind of 1 Orange

2 drops of Vanilla Essence

Beat Eggs, Sugar and Vanilla until sugar dissolves completely. Keep aside. Put juice, rind and Butter into a heavy-based saucepan. Pour in Egg/Sugar mixture into the saucepan. Over low heat stir the mixture carefully, but quickly with a wooden spoon. Continue to beat as mixture reaches boiling point. At this point, the mixture will start thickening quickly. When mixture just starts becoming a thick custard, take it off the heat, give it a good beating and let it cool.

Assembly

Pour Curd into the tart shell and put it back into the oven at 140 Celsius. Watch the tart carefully until the Curd just starts bubbling. Remove the tart from the oven and let it cool completely. Place in the fridge to set.