Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

For a while now, I have considered making a delectable fruit tart for my 30th, like the ones seen in a French pâtisserie: pâte sucrée, crème pâtissière, loads of fruit and a fruity glaze. After my second apple martini last night (seeing out the 20s), I decided to make pâte sucrée. Nigella Lawson reckons it's a nightmare; Tamasin Day-Lewis makes it sound like a breeze. My proper baking bible, Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, is in the US, and so for the details of this tart, I relied on Tamasin Day-Lewis' Tamasin's Kitchen Bible.

Waking up very early after the two martinis, I pulled the dough out of the fridge to come to a pliable temperature. When I thought that had been reached, I started rolling. The pastry crumbled and then proceeded to stick to everything. Knowing that one can patch a tart base together, I decided to construct an entire pastry shell out of a patchwork. Anticipating more shrinkage than usual, I crammed as much as I could into the 25cm/10" fluted shell and put it in the fridge for an hour (to also prevent further shrinking). It didn't matter. When I removed the beans part way through the blind baking process, I could see that seams had been created along the base, creating gaps. There was no way the pastry was going to expand and fill those in. Into the bin the half-cooked tart shell went.

So, what went wrong? Ms. Day-Lewis states that she uses egg yolks to bind the dry ingredients together (as opposed to iced water, which is used for shortcrust pastry). In the list of ingredients for her pâte sucrée, however, is the suggestion of a little cold water. What? The sand-like combination of flour, butter, icing sugar and vanilla seeds seemed to come together after mixing in the cold egg yolks. The addition of water seemed unnecessary, and Ms. Day-Lewis did not explain when one should use that little amount of cold water. When the pastry crumbled, though, I knew it was too dry.

I had another go at it, but this time without the luxury of really cold flour and eggs because I didn't expect to have to make the pastry again (and one would hope not given the amount of eggs and vanilla already used in the failed pâte sucrée as well as the crème pâtissière). I added perhaps one tablespoon of ice-cold water after binding the dry ingredients with egg yolks. The pastry was supple and not soggy. After resting it for an-hour-and-a-half, I left the pastry on the kitchen counter for 20 minutes and then rolled it out. It still tore a bit and was perhaps a little too wet to transfer from the rolling pin. I got around this by making a tri-fold, which I opened out over the 25cm/10" fluted tart shell. Once baked blind, there was a tiny split seam...Grrr...So, I figured, one has to compile this tart just before eating, for the custard will make the tart shell soggy anyway, and I just went with it...

Pâte Sucrée
(from Tamasin Day-Lewis' Tamasin's Kitchen Bible)

1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
110g/4 oz butter, cut into a dice
1 tablespoon icing sugar, sifted
seeds from 1 vanilla pod
2 egg yolks
1-2 tablespoons ice-cold water

1) Lightly with fingers rub the butter into the flour, sugar and vanilla seeds.
2) Once a sand-like texture is achieved, add the egg yolks. Mix together. If the dough is not coming together and or is not supple, add ice-cold water, mixing only one tablespoon at a time, for you might not need all of the water. Too much water will make a sticky dough.
3) Wrap in cling-film and refrigerate for at least one hour.
4) Pre-heat oven to 200 C/400 F.
5) Bring pastry out of fridge and allow it to come to a pliable texture, about 15-20 minutes.
6) On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out, keep turning it so it does not stick to your cold surface.
7) Set pastry into your tart shell, cover with parchment paper and baking beans.
8) Bake for 15 minutes.
9) Take out of the oven, remove beans and parchment paper. Prick the base of the shell with the tines of a fork. Put back in the oven until cooked through and golden, approximately 10 minutes.
10) Allow to cool before filling with crème pâtissière.

Crème Pâtissière
(from Tamasin Day-Lewis' Tamasin's Kitchen Bible)

340ml/12 fl. oz milk
150ml/5 fl. oz heavy cream
vanilla seeds from 1 vanilla pod
1 egg
3 egg yolks
75g/2 1/2oz caster sugar (vanilla sugar works here, too)
1/3 cup cornflour, sifted

1) Into a saucepan pour milk, cream, vanilla seeds and split vanilla pod. Bring to scalding point over a low heat.
2) Whisk together the egg, yolks and sugar until pale and creamy.
3) Add one-third of the cornflour to egg mixture and mix thoroughly, then do the same with the remaining two-thirds. Ensure that all lumps are worked out.
4) Remove vanilla pod from milk. If you want, you can rinse it then dry it before adding to your sugar container.
5) Pour one-third of the milk to the egg mixture and whisk well. Pour this into the rest of the milk in the saucepan and continue to whisk over a gentle heat. The cornstarch helps stop the custard from splitting, but you do not want to ever boil the mixture, so whisk, whisk, whisk.
6) Once thickened, pour into a bowl, cover and cool. Once cooled, this can be stored in the fridge for about three days.

A bit of a trial, really. I didn't bother with glazing the fruit as I had planned, for I could see the fruit sinking in the pastry cream. Great. I thought it looked quite solid, but I suppose I should have seen if a spoon could stand up in it as that would have been a better measurement of how much the crème pâtissière had set. And I can see why people avoid making pastry altogether. Perhaps with a little more experience I will create a perfect pâte sucrée, which I feel might also be eased by checking other recipes. I was afraid that the cream would break the dams of the pastry, but it didn't. I must say, though, that life would have been made simpler with a shortcrust pastry because the crème pâtissière is so strong in flavour that the pâte sucrée had no chance of standing up to it - but it did look lovely, in the truest sense of the word: simple, natural, sweet. In all, though, an incredibly tasty tart, if a messy one. I only hope that is not too indicative of my year of being 30.

Labels: crème pâtissière, French, Fruit tart, pâte sucrée, Tamasin Day-Lewis, Tart