Strawberry Cream Tart

Click here to sign up to our free newsletters!

Any Frasers out there? Did you know your Fraser ancestors originated in France, and arrived in Scotland in the 11th and 12th centuries after the Norman Conquests?

The name Fraser derives from the French for strawberry – la fraise – from their former occupation in France as strawberry-growers. The Frasers still celebrate this connection with three five-petalled strawberry-flowers on their coat of arms and indeed if you visit Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire you’ll spot little strawberry flowers carved in the 16th-century stone ceilings.

Which links nicely with today’s recipe featuring – spinach. No of course it doesn’t. It features strawberries. Small, delicious Scottish ones in the shops now. The ones in my garden aren’t anywhere close to ripening yet, but if they ever do, here’s what I’ll do with them.

This strawberry tart is very simple, and a bit of a cheat really as it features a dollop or two of shop-bought vanilla custard, but at least the pastry’s home made and the finished result looks very beautiful.

STRAWBERRY CREAM TART

For the sweet pastry –

175g (6 oz) plain flour

pinch of salt

40g (1 ½ oz) icing sugar

75g (3oz) fridge-cold butter

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon cold water

Sieve flour, salt and icing sugar into a bowl. Rub in the butter until resembling breadcrumbs. Add the eggs and water, and stir together with a knife until it begins to form a soft dough. Bring together into a ball using your hands, and wrap in cling film. Put in the fridge for half an hour or so. Pre-heat oven to 200C. Grease a 22cm /9 inch fluted flan tin, with removable base. Flour a work surface, roll out the pastry to fit (this pastry seems quite fragile, so be careful), and line the flan tin. Trim edges. Bake blind – that is, put a sheet of baking paper on top of pastry, tip in dry beans/lentils to weigh down, and bake for about 15 minutes or until edges are golden. Remove from oven, carefully remove bean-filled paper, turn off oven, and return flan case to oven for a few more moments until the pastry base dries properly. Remove from oven, and set aside to cool.

For the filling –

300 ml/ ½ pint double cream

200 ml/ 7 fl oz best quality bought custard, the kind with cream and vanilla seeds in, from supermarket chill section

2 punnets strawberries or rasps, or a mixture

icing sugar, for dusting

fresh mint leaves if wanted

Beat the cream till fairly stiff but not buttery. Fold in custard. Spoon into pastry case, and smooth level. Leave to chill for an hour or so. Shortly before serving, arrange the fruit over the top, packing it in tightly. (If you do this too soon, the fruit juice might leak and spoil the appearance of the tart a bit.) Dust with icing sugar, and decorate with the odd mint sprig which you will later find, neatly parked on the side of each otherwise scraped-clean plate when it comes to clearing away.

If you wanted, you could make a very simple glaze for this tart by warming some redcurrant jelly (two or three tablespoons?) with juice of half a lemon, stirring to get rid of any lumps, letting it cool slightly, and brushing it over each strawberry. This will look fab. But, I warn you now, it will not taste half as delicious as the vivid red gloop you get over shop-bought strawberry tarts.

---

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.

---