English Custard Tart– GBBO technical bake 4

From this..

The Great British Seaside

…to this (and a lot of rain)

Tart Tuesday

What a perfect weekend. Walks along the seafront at Bournemouth with family, lots of reading, lots of chat and lots of good food, then home and straight to baking this week’s technical bake. That’s my commitment to this challenge to myself –  baking an English Custard Tart at 9pm after a weekend away by the seaside, Since I was in a bit of a hurry to have a nice cup of tea and a sit down, I only rested my pastry for 15mins which may have led to the slight shrinkage, or perhaps the fact that I blind baked it without any baking beans ( or rice alternative). Also, I made it in a victoria sponge tin as I don’t own a tart tin.

I refuse to make any jokes about the crispness of the base layer of pastry. Too many have been made already. I think mine was erring on the not-totally-crisp side. Sorry Paul.

So, here’s how I made it (with a big nod to Delia, <update 04/16: Delia’s recipe link isn’t available so try this one from Tesco>). I have since read Ed Kimber’s (ex bake-off winner) recipe and I think it sounds nicer. Might be worth a go if you’re planning on trying this.

Traditional English Custard Tart

Pastry
150 g plain flour,
pinch of salt
65g  butter

Custard filling
3 large eggs, plus 2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
570 ml single cream
50 g caster sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ whole nutmegs, freshly grated

For the pastry

Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs, or pulse in a food processor,
Add about 1 tbsp of water and try bringing the mix together using a knife, then your hands, If need be add a little more water. You want to use as little water as possible whilst still having a texture that you can roll out.
Put in a sandwich bag and leave to rest in the fridge for 30mins (do as I say, not as I do).
Preheat the oven to 190C / 375F with a baking tray in it (or if you have an oven that can add extra base heat, turn that on).
Dust your work surface with flour and roll out the pastry until big enough to fill the tart tin with extra to go over the edges. Press into the tart tin and trim the edges of the pastry it so that there’s some on the top of the lip of the tin, then cut leaf shapes (or whatevever) from the off cuts and use some of the whisked egg to stick them around the edge.
Wash the whole of the cash with egg, prick the base with a fork,. Place on the hot baking tray and bake blind (aka empty) for about 20mins until crisp and golden. You may chose to line with foil and fill with baking beans.

After it is done, take the pastry case out of the oven and turn it down to 170C / 325F but leave it on

For the filling
In a saucepan, gently heat the cream to a simmer.
In a large (big enough for the milk and egg together) heatproof jug, gentle whisk the eggs and sugar together.
Pour the hot cream into it whilst mixing.
Add half of the nutmeg and the vanilla.
Place the pastry case back in the over, pull the wire shelf halfway out and pour the liquid in.
Sprinkle the rest of the nutmeg on top and bake for 30-40 mins until the filling is golden brown, firm in the middle and a little puffed up.

I have a question for you  . When I took the tart out of the oven it had puffed up a lot . According to the recipe it’s only meant to puff up a little. I presume this has caused the oh-so-attractive wrinkly top. Why has it done this?  I whisked the egg together a very small amount but not much at all.

A wrinkly tart. Snigger.

You can see all the bloggers who are baking along with GBBO by checking out the “Great Blogger Bake Off” hosted by The Crazy Kitchen and Mummy Mishaps and also the link up over at Bakers Anonymous