Glazed Strawberry Tart

Summer is officially underway, and to most people nothing says summer more than a glut of British Strawberries. There’s no end of ways to use strawberries, be it on their own with some whipped cream, dropped into an ice cold glass of Pimms or coaxed into some fantastic jam towards the end of the season, but one of my favorite things to do with them is make strawberry tarts.

It’s a perfect summer dessert. You could even make mini ones to take on picnics. The recipe is really quite simple, sweet pastry, creme patissiere and strawberries. The recipe would also work well switching out the strawberries for other fruits such as kiwi, peach, grape or anything really!

I use a basic sweet pastry (paté sucreé) recipe from the BBC good food website as my base. I usually make in bulk and have some in the freezer, but if you’re short on time the ready made stuff would work. Using a fluted shallow flan or quiche tin works well for this recipe.

Ingredients

1 portion sweet pastry
about 12-14 large strawberries, greenery removed and sliced in half lengthways
2 tbsp apricot or strawberry jam to glaze
4 tbsp hot water
1 egg yolk (for the egg wash)

For the Creme Patissiere (makes ~750ml)

100g caster sugar
4 egg yolks
40g cornflour
500ml full-fat milk
1tsp vanilla extract

Method

Roll out your pastry to about 5mm thick. Line the tart case, leaving an overhang of pastry (the pastry shrinks whilst cooking). Blind bake for about 15min on 170º
Remove the baking beans and prick the pastry gently with a fork.Egg wash the pastry and bake for another 10mins until golden. Leave to cool then trim the excess pastry using a small serated knife.
To make the creme pat – whisk the sugar, egg yolks and cornflour together until smooth and set aside
Add the vanilla to the milk in a small saucepan, bring to the boil then remove from the heat.
Pour a third of the milk into the egg mixture and whisk together, then return this mixture to the rest of the milk in the pan over a gentle heat and cook until the mixture thickens and thickly coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat.
Place a disc of baking paper over the surface of the mixture (to stop a skin forming) and leave to cool, then chill before completing the tart.
Remove the tart from the case, pour in the creme pat mixture, then arrange the halved strawberries in a pattern on the surface.
Finally, mix the hot water with the jam and then glaze the surface of the tart using a pastry brush.