Portuguese Custard Tarts

So, the lovely Jesse visited and we had a lovely time cooking together. The menu of the night was Claypot Chicken Rice and Portuguese Custard Tarts. Both turned out absolutely scrumptious. Granted, there were times we weren't sure our dinner was going to turn out well, yet it did!

We had a delicious salty-sweet-savoury dinner, followed by these luscious golden tarts.

PORTUGUESE CUSTARD TARTS

Adapted from Simon Rimmer

Butter, for greasing

3 Egg Yolks

125g Caster Sugar

30g Cornflour

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

175ml Full Cream Milk

225ml Thickened Cream

Plain Flour and Icing Sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven at 150 Celsius. Grease the wells of a 12-hole large cupcake tray with Butter.

In a pan, heat the Egg Yolks, Caster Sugar and Cornflour over a low to medium heat, whisking continuously until thickened and well combined.

Add the Vanilla Extract, then add Full Cream Milk and Thickened Cream, in a thin stream, whisking continuously, until the mixture is thick, smooth and well combined.

Continue to stir the custard mixture until it comes to the boil, then remove from the heat and cover the surface with cling film to prevent a skin from forming.

Roll out the Puff Pastry onto a clean work surface and lightly dust with Plain Flour and Icing Sugar. Cut the Puff Pastry in half and place one sheet on top of the other. Roll the Puff Pastry sheets up like a Swiss Roll and cut the roll into twelve slices.

Lay each of the rolled pastry slices flat onto the work surface and roll out into 10am discs using a rolling pin.

Press a pastry disc into each of the wells of the prepared cupcake tray. Divide the cooled custard equally among the pastry cases.

Transfer the tray to the oven and bake tarts for 18 - 20 minutes, or until the custard has set and is pale golden-brown in colour and the pastry is crisp and golden-brown. Allow to cool in the tray before removing for storage.

Pretty, pretty berries...

This is a very late post. Some time in April, before I left for a holiday in the UK, our office had a party and some of us (the lucky ones, yea) got fresh strawberries in our goodie bags. I turned mine into a strawberry frangipane tart. Please don't ask me what recipe I used, because I simply cannot remember! It was a while ago, and a lot has happened since then.

In retrospect, I'm not sure strawberries work very well in a frangipane tart. It tasted lovely, but I'll probably use them in a fresh fruit tart the next time.

However, I do love the pictures I took of the berries and the tart. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Pretty, pretty berries

Lovely contrast of red and green

Strawberry Frangipane Tart fresh out of the oven

Yummy, yummy slice... mmmmm...

Cherries galore and a hodge-podge recipe

Oooooh... cherries are in season again! So I just had to get some for myself. They're really precious. I mean REALLY precious as we don't grow cherries here in Malaysia. They need to be imported in from the United States. This lot cost me a ridiculous RM45.70. That's a lot in a country where you can get a whole comb of sunny yellow bananas for RM5.00.

We get two types of cherries sold here during the season. The deep, dark Bing cherries and these blushingly lovely Rainier cherries. As you can probably tell, it's the Rainier cherries that are my personal favourite. Its' salmon-pink-beige skin and juicy-sweet flesh always keeps me coming back for more, year after year.

I got greedy with this bounty of cherries. I wanted to eat them fresh, straight out of hand BUT I also wanted to eat them in a tart. I wanted so badly to try Pierre Herme's Cherry Pistachio Tart but not that badly to go looking for pistachios.

So this is what I did. I took three different recipes, altered them a little and made a tart that's completely my own. I'm christening it the Cherry Streusel Tart. The original recipes for the base, frangipane and streusel can be found at Coco & Me, Joy of Baking and Dorie Greenspan.

CHERRY STREUSEL TART

Base

55g Butter

32g Icing Sugar

1 large Egg

15g Ground Almonds

100g Plain Flour

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Preheat oven at 140 Celsius and get a 23cm diameter tart/pie tin ready. 

Cream Butter, Sugar and Vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in the Egg until well combined. Fold in Flour and Almonds gently until just mixed through. Bring the soft dough together into a ball. Clingfilm and rest in the fridge for about 3 hours. Roll dough between two plastic sheets to fit the tart tin. Lift plastic sheet and overturn dough into the tin. Trim edges and even-out dough with fingers if necessary. Place the dough-lined tin into the fridge to rest for about 1 hour. Remove tin from the fridge, prick well and bake at 160 Celsius for about 25 - 30 minutes until it turns a light golden colour. Remove from oven and let it cool.

Frangipane
50g Butter
50g Caster Sugar
1 large Egg
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
45g Ground Almonds
12g Plain Flour

Cream Butter, Sugar and Vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in the Egg until well combined. Fold in Flour and Almonds gently until just mixed through. Set aside.

Streusel
50g Butter
50g Caster Sugar
50g Ground Almonds
50g Plain Flour
Pinch of Nutmeg
Pinch of Sea Salt

Cream Butter and Sugar until  light and fluffy. Fold in Flour, Ground Almonds, Nutmeg and Sea Salt. At this point, use your fingers to bring the Streusel together and break it into clumps. Set aside.

300g Rainier Cherries (halved and stoned)
4 tablespoons Greengadge conserve - or any tart jam you prefer

Assembly
Spread the Greengadge conserve on the bottom of the cooled base. Spoon the Frangipane over the Jam and spread to cover. Place the Cherry halves over the Frangipane and press in slightly. Sprinkle the clumps of Streusel over the Cherries. Bake tart at 160 Celsuis for about 45 minutes to an hour, until the top has browned and a skewer inserted into the Frangipane comes out clean. Serve slightly warm on its own or with unsweetened Whipped Cream on the side.

Thank you Daisy, for popping by at the right time to help stone the cherries while providing great conversation and a hungry-for-cherry-tart-stomach!

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.