Strawberry tart recipe!

Who doesn't love a strawberry tart? These are the ones I made for Portobello Market last month and they went down a treat!

A few different elements to making them but well worth it - my 6 year old loves making them with me!

Firstly the pastry.

This is the recipe I followed. Don't worry about having the tin foil holder. You can put pastry straight into the tin just make sure you grease it so make sure they come out after baking.

This is a Mary Berry recipe from her book Mary Berry Everyday.

Ingredients-

175g Plain Flour.

2 tbsp. Icing Sugar.

100g Cold Butter.

1 Egg, beaten.

Method-

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6. Whizz the flour, icing sugar and butter together in a food processor or in between your fingers till it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the egg then roll into a ball and wrap in cling film. Put in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle work surface with flour and roll out dough to the thickness of a £1 coin. Line your tin with pastry right up the sides then prick the base with a fork. Don't stretch the pastry when you put it in tin. It will shrink back if you stretch it. Line each pastry case with baking paper, fill with a few baking beans ( I used rice) and bake blind for about 10 minutes until pale golden and starting to cook . Remove the beans (or rice!) and paper and return to the oven for about 5 minutes to dry out the base and to finish cooking the pastry. Set aside to cool down completely in the tins.

For the filling - you can use double cream whipped up - that is what I use or if you could make some creme patisserie - here is a link for a recipe for it here https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/11068/creme-patissiere .

Wait until the tart cases are cold then you can start assembling - the fun part!

So fill the tart with your filling of choice then level it - add your strawberries - I normally use one big one right in the middle then quarter another strawberry and arrange it nicely round about. For the topping I use Green's Red Quick Jel which you can find in most supermarkets. Here is a link for it https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/302196419?gclid=CP7u4cbDxuMCFQeNhQodAyUPxQ&gclsrc=ds .

You get 2 sachets in a pack - I would say don't cook it too long or it will be too like jelly - you want it to be more a dripping consistency.

Enjoy and have a lovely Summer!

Val.