CUSTARD TART

So simple yet so divine...

These gorgeous little rustic sweet pastry egg custard tarts are a perfect treat, light crumbly melt in your mouth pastry filled with a rich decadent egg and vanilla cream just set wobbly custard finished off with that all essential dusting of nutmeg to send this tart to perfection...

Prep time 10 minutes / Pastry resting time 1 hour / Cooking time 30-40 minutes

Ingredients

(makes 10)

Sweet Pastry

350g plain flour

150g soft unsalted butter

100g icing sugar

pinch of salt

2 eggs beaten

Egg Custard Filling

5 egg yolks

55g caster sugar

333ml double cream

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 tsp grated nutmeg

First make the pastry, place the soft butter and icing sugar on your work top or in a bowl and gently using your fingers and thumb in a pecking action (think chicken beak pecking action!), incorporate the butter in to the icing sugar until combined.  

Add the eggs to the butter sugar mix and beat together until incorporated as one.

Add the salt to the flour and start to add to the eggs and sugar mix chopping the flour in until you have a rough dough, it will happen, bring together with you hands and knead a couple of times to form a smooth dough ball, wrap in baking paper and pop in the fridge to rest and chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile make the egg custard, place the egg yolks in a large bowl and whisk, add the sugar and whisk until light and fluffy, next add the vanilla bean paste and cream and whisk until smooth.  Leave on the side until needed.

Roll out the pastry as thin as you dare and using a circle cutter cut out the circle size that fits your baking tins, line your tins with the pastry and then some baking paper and baking beans.  Blind bake at 180 C / 360  F for 10 minutes then remove the baking paper and beans and bake for a further 5 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 120 degrees, fill your pastry cases, take the egg custard and skim off the bubbly top from the custard, then pour in to the pastry cases and dust the tops with a little pinch of the nutmeg.

Pop in the oven to cook for approx 20 minutes, the custard tarts are done when there is a almost set wobble in the centre when you jiggly the baking tin, remove from the oven and leave to cool on a cake rack, then enjoy.