Custard Tarts

Sorry for the silence but I have just finished exams.... so we'll pretend that that is an acceptable excuse....

In my family, custard tarts bought from the supermarket last a total of 30 mins tops. They are just absorbed. But I find that they tend to be quite claggy so thought that perhaps they would be nicer if I made them myself. These are inspired by the recipe in the book, "John Whaite Bakes" but I wasn't sure about how well orange liqueur would go down with my 11 year old brother.

It is made by pouring a creme patisserie in to a rough puff pastry case which are then baked for around half an hour. This recipe has three parts basically, rough puff pastry, custard, combination.

Part 1: Rough Puff Pastry

250g plain flour
250g butter in cubes
1 tsp lemon juice
125-250 ml cold water

Rub some of the butter through the flour but not all of it, leaving a few larger chunks of butter.

Stir the lemon juice in to the water then pour the liquid solution in to the flour bit by bit pushing the mixture in to a ball.

Flour the workshop and place and roll the pastry in to a rectangle about 12cm wide and around 1cm thick. Fold each end towards each other so that they meet in the middle, brush off flour and then fold the two panels together.

Turn the dough a quarter turn and then roll in in to another rectangle as you did at first. Repeat the folds and then chill for 15 minutes. Remove from the fridge, refold the pastry twice and refrigerate until you need it.

Part 2: Custard

4 egg yolks
125g caster sugar
40g cornflour
500ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
25g butter

Whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture is slightly paler in colour. Add the cornflour and whisk well making sure that there are no lumps remaining.

Then heat the milk and the vanilla extract until the milk is on the point of boiling. Mix half the milk into the egg bowl, whisking continuously until the milk is well combined. Then pour this mixture into the rest of the milk on the heat and whisk constantly until the custard is thick enough to cover the back of a spoon.

Remove from the heat and stir for another minute before adding the butter. Stir until the butter is melted.

Pour until a bowl and let it cool a little bit before covering the bowl with cling film until you are ready to use it.

Part 3: Mixing

Preheat the oven 220 degrees celsius.

Sift a covering of icing sugar on to your work surface and roll out the pastry until it is about 3mm thick. Grease shallow bun tins with butter. Cut out circles of pastry appropriate in size to your tins and line them with pastry. Fill the pastry cases just over half way with the custard.

Place the tarts in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes - watching them carefully so that they don't catch.