Strawberry Tart

I have made some tarts in the past, but I know that strawberry tarts are the best! It's time for my version of a large strawberry tart. I used two different recipes for this because the crust and the filling are separate. You can break up the crust into three separate smaller tarts, but I used all the dough to make one pie-looking tart. I adapted the first recipe for the crust from Robert Linxe’s chocolate tart blog post on the blog Smitten Kitchen written by Deb Perelman. The second recipe for the filling was adapted from the strawberry tart recipe on the Smitten Kitchen blog as well. Enjoy this with a cup of tea or on a beautiful spring day. 

Strawberry Tart:

Sweet Tart Dough Recipe:

Time: 1 hour plus 4 for cooling in the fridge

Servings: Three 4-inch tart crusts or one 11-inch large tart

Ingredients- 

• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• Lightly packed 1/2 cup ground blanched almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

Steps

First, blanch the almonds. Put them in boiling water for 30-45 seconds only then strain them and put them into a food processor until the almonds become a coarse sand-like texture. Then clean out the food processor and put the butter in there and blend until creamy. Then add the confectioners' sugar and blend until combined. Add the ground almonds, salt, and vanilla extract and continue to process until smooth. Scrap down the sides of the processor as needed. Whisk both eggs together before adding them to the mixture. Lastly, add the flour and put it on pulse until just combined. When it just starts to form a ball stop, because you don't want to overwork the dough. Gather the dough into a ball with your clean hands and press it into a disk to wrap in plastic wrap to refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours and a maximum of 2 days. 

When done refrigerating, roll out the dough and cut dough into however many tarts you are going to make. Then press the dough into the prepared baking pan lined with parchment paper on the bottom. Then put it in the fridge for 30 minutes. While it's in the fridge preheat the oven to 350℉.

Then line the dough with a round piece of parchment paper, and fill it with dried beans or rice. Then bake the crusts for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned at the edges. Then remove the beans/rice and parchment paper and put the crust back into the oven to bake for another 3-5 minutes or until golden colored. Then let cool while making the filling. 

Strawberry Tart filling:

Time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients - 

• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1/2 moist, plump vanilla bean, split and scraped or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3-4 cups of strawberries for the topping of the tart

Steps

Put the milk and vanilla bean in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover the pan and turn off the heat then set it aside for 10 minutes. But if you are using vanilla extract, just bring the milk to a boil and add the extract before adding the butter to the pastry cream. Mix together the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch in a separate saucepan until thick and pale. Continuously whisk the mixture while drizzling a tiny bit of the hot milk to temper the yolks. Then pour the rest of the milk over the mixture and continue to whisk.

Put the milk mixture over medium heat and mix vigorously until it is brought to a boil and thickened. Once it's at a boil continue to mix for 1-2 minutes then take it off the heat. Scrape the pastry cream into a separate bowl and let cool for a few minutes. Then cut the butter into small chunks and stir them into the hot cream until melted and fully incorporated. (This is where you would add the vanilla extract as well.) Then either put this bowl into a larger bowl of ice water to evenly cool completely, while stirring consistently. Or, refrigerate the cream by putting plastic wrap on the bowl but making it airtight on top of the cream and placing it in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

After it is done cooling, pour the cream into the cooled tart crust and make sure it looks smooth on the top. Then cut your strawberries however you want and decorate the tart with strawberries in whatever form you like. I cut the strawberries in half and placed them in circles around the tart until I got to the middle where I placed one final strawberry. If the tart is not eaten all at once, put the leftovers in the fridge before serving again.