Custard Tart

Finally squeeze out time to try on Vincent Gadan's recipe! He is a French born pastry chef with over 25 years experience. One of his biggest accolades was winning first place in the Ardennes-Eiffel Culinary Prize, at the age of 22! He is currently the Executive Chef and trainer extraordinaire at Patisse Cooking School.

I bought his recipe on Homemade Patisserie Pastry Made Easy sometime in July, wanting to try many of his pastry but didn't manage to do so...last week finally squeeze out a morning to do it!

I like his custard tart, the crust is crumbly and the custard filling is not so sweet just right for my family! His recipe instructions is simple and straight forward, this give me more confident to do more of his recipes in future.

Recipe from Homemade Patisserie Pastry Made Easy, page 42-46

Ingredients for pie dough:

180g unsalted butter, cold, diced in cubes

230g plain flour

2 pinches table salt

50ml water 

Method: 

1. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour and salt until it forms a crumbly texture. There should still be partial chunks of butter in the dry mix.

2. Add water and mix till just combined. The butter should still be seen in the dough like a marble effect. Do not overwork the dough!

3. Flatten the dough into a rectangle approximately 1 cm thick, wrap it in plastic wrap and rest the dough in the refrigerator for 20 mins (important)

4. Prepare the tart mould by brushing inside with softened butter, dust with flour and shake off any excess.

5. Lightly flour a clean surface, take dough out from fridge, remove the plastic wrap and using a rolling pin, roll out to a 25cm diameter circle, lift up the dough from surface occasionally to relax it, re-flour if needed to ensure the dough is not sticking to the surface. 

6. Gently wrap the dough around the rolling pin, then slowly unwind dough over the mould. Starting from the centre, press in the dough lightly with fingers, working your way around the base and then up the sides. Take the rolling pin and roll over the top of the mould, this will cut the top edges, giving you a clean finish. Rest the dough in the fridge for 20 mins.

7. Preheat the oven to 170C. Prepare the tart base with baking weights. Bake the base for 20-25 mins.

Ingredients for custard filling:

400ml milk

100ml pouring cream

1 vanilla bean, scraped

5 egg yolks

100g superfine sugar

25g cornstarch/ cornflour

Method:

1. In a small saucepan, pour in the milk and cream. Cut the vanilla bean length ways and scrape out the seeds with a knife. Add the seeds and pod to the saucepan and bring to boil.

2. In a mixing bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar, add cornflour. When milk mixture comes to the boil, pour into the egg mixture and continue whisking vigorously. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, place on the medium heat and continue whisking until the custard comes to boil. Continue to whisk and cook the custard for 1 min, remove the saucepan from heat and continue whisking for another 30 seconds. Remove the vanilla bean skins.

Assemble, Bake and Serve:

Pour the custard mixture into the pre-baked tart base. Bake at 175C for 25-30 mins. (depends on your oven). After complete cool down, set in the fridge for at least an hour. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Last week, there was a morning full of sun and for the first time I walked from my house to the shopping centre near my place, a 15 mins walk which I think I should do it more often. On the way, I see this beautiful flowers... and I know Spring is here!