Caramel Milk Tart

Wow long silence. Exams. Excuses. Excuses. I have been baking but not blogging so over the next few weeks expect a few!

Anyway first up here is a custard tart with a caramel crumble topping.

Ingredients:
Pastry:
250g plain flour
50g icing sugar
125g cold butter
1 egg
A splash of semi-skinned milk

Filling:
600ml milk
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 knob of butter
2 eggs
2 tbsps of cornflour
1.5 tbsps of plain flour
75g caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

Caramel:
130g caster sugar
3 tbsps water

Method:
Rub cubes of butter into the flour and icing sugar until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add the egg and work together before adding a splash of milk so that the pastry forms a scruffy ball. Wrap in clingfilm and leave to chill for 2 hours.

Grease a 24cm tin and roll the pastry to 0.5 cm thickness. Put pastry into the tin and prick the base then freeze for 20 mins.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Then fill the pastry case with baking beans on a layer of grease-proof paper. Then bake blind for 10 minutes. Remove the beans and then bake for another 10 minutes.

For the filling heat the milk with vanilla extract and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and then stir in the butter until it melts. In a bowl mix the eggs with cornflour, flour and sugar and then when the milk has cooled gradually whisk into the egg mixture. Tip back into the pan and place over a low hear until thickened, whisking constantly. Pour in to pastry case and dust with cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake for 20 minutes.

Melt the sugar in a non-stick pan with water over a medium heat until lightly golden then pour onto a sheet until it cools. Then smash the caramel into pieces and crumble over the top.

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.