As it had been due to rain, my father made a quick fire dash to Argos and purchased a very fetching forest green gazebo with white detailing... ooooh stylish. But typically, once you spend £40 to protect your guests from rain it doesn't so now we are left with a glorified tent taking up valuable cupboard space... great!
Anyway the main point of this was that for the party I whipped up 70 custard and strawberry tarts and 55 cupcakes designed to look like "99" ice creams, along with a few dozen meringues.
Strawberry Custard Tarts
These tarts are made up of rich shortcrust pastry which is baked blind which are then filled with custard and topped with sugar dusted strawberries.
Rich Shortcrust Pastry
1 egg
125g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g plain flour
125g salted butter
Whisk the egg, extract and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved.
Stir the flour in to the mixture until it has an almost sandy texture.
Add the butter in cubes so that the dough can come together easiliy and knead gently for a few seconds.
Refrigerate for as long as possible, I left mine for about 24 hours and the pastry was considerably better for it!
Roll out in to small discs and place in the buttered molds, cover the mold with grease proof paper and fill with baking beans or rice. Then bake for about 15 mins.
Once the pastry cases are done fill with the custard....
Custard
4 egg yolks125g 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.
End
Scoop a spoonful of custard in to each pastry case and add one or two sugar dusted strawberries as decoration.
Summer Cupcakes
Sponge
- 125g caster sugar
- 125g soft unsalted butter
- 2 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon milk
Icing
140g butter
280g icing sugar
Some "Flakes" and sprinkles
Cream the butter and sugar together then slowly add the eggs, extract and half the flour in an alternating pattern.
Fold in the remainder of the flour and if the mixture is still stiff, add the milk and mix.
Dollop a spoonful of mixture into each cupcake case and bake for about 12 minutes. Once out of the oven, leave to cool while you make the icing.
For the icing, whisk the butter so it is smoother and slightly paler. Once it has reached this point slowly add the icing sugar until there are no lumps of butter.
Put the icing into a piping bag fitter with a medium star shaped nozzle and pipe in a circular motion on to the cupcake.
Cut up each "flake" into thirds and place in the icing of each cupcake. Then cover with some sprinkles.
I then used the egg whites left over from the custard to make meringues....which you can find a recipe for here... http://girlbaking.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/perfect-meringue-recipe.html
For chocolate ones, add a tablespoonful of cocoa powder to the mixture at the end and then dust before baking.
All these recipes make considerably less than I actually made but as a general guideline, I hope they are good!
Enjoy and happy summer!
