I got given a lovely patisserie book for Christmas full of some amazing recipes and thought it would be fun to try some on my blog and so I’m starting my year with chapter one of my book – learning about all the different pastry’s.

This week I concentrated on short crust pastry which is also known as Pâte Brisée .  With the pastry I made a plum tart and also some homemade custard to go with it.

The pastry consists of

250g plain flour

125g diced butter room temperature

40g sugar

Place all the ingredients into a bowl rub together until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.  Gradually add 125ml of cold water and knead the pastry into a soft ball (you may not need all the water and this is okay).

Then cover the pastry in cling film and place in the fridge for two hours.

Putting the pastry in the fridges makes it easier to work with when you are rolling it out and it also means the gluten has time to rest which stops the pastry shrinking when you bake it

.

When two hours are up roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface.  The pastry should be about 3mm thick.  Then place the pastry over your greased 24cm tart case (with a removable bottom).  Cut off the excess pastry and then prick the pastry with a fork, this stops the pastry from puffing when it’s in the oven.

For the plum tart

500g sliced plums

50g fine dried bread crumbs

25g sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

sugar to sprinkle over tart when baked

Sprinkle the breads crumbs on the base of the tart.  This prevents the plum juice from making the pastry soggy.  Arrange the plums in circles on the breadcrumbs and sprinkle the 25g of sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon over the plums.  Then bake for 35 – 40 mins in a preheated oven at  200°C.

When baked removed from the oven and sprinkle sugar on top of the tart.  Serve warm with a homemade custard.

To make the custard

300ml double or single cream

3 egg yolks

1 level teaspoon castor sugar

2 drops vanilla essence

Heat the cream in a saucepan on  a hob until boiling.  In a separate bowl mix the egg yolks, sugar and corn flour and vanilla essence.  Pour the heated cream into the egg mixture and mix together.  Then pour the custard back into the saucepan and over a low heat whisk gently until thickened the serve with the tart.

I don’t normally like fruit tarts but I really liked this one.  At first I thought the breadcrumbs were odd but they do add a nice texture to the tart.

Join me next week when I make an orange cream tart with a sweet pastry.