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Strawberry and Italian custard tart

A delicious recipe for strawberry and Italian custard tart
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Resting time30 minutes
Total Time2 hours
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: French, Italian
Servings: 8 servings

Ingredients

  • For the Dough:
  • 125 g All-purpose flour 4.4oz, 1 cup
  • 50 g Granulated Sugar 3.5 Tbsp
  • 1 pinch Salt
  • 1 Lemon for the zest
  • 90 g fridge-cold Butter 6 Tbsp
  • 1 Egg yolk
  • 2 - 4 Tbsp Water
  • For the Crema:
  • 500 ml Milk 2 cups
  • 75 g Flour
  • 125 g 4.2oz, 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
  • 1 packet vanilla sugar or 1 tsp of essence
  • 2 Egg yolks
  • 1 lemon for the zest
  • 500 g Strawberries 1 lb, approx. 2 cups - or any red berries

Instructions

For the Dough:

  • Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a food processor or by hand.
  • Add the lemon zest and butter and whizz, or rub together with your hands, until the mixture looks crumbly.
  • Add the egg yolk and mix in, then the water, 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough sticks together.  It should be a little crumbly and not sticky.
  • Put the dough in plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes, and up to 3 days.
  • When you want to use the dough, take it out of the fridge (of course!).  Roll it out on the bench to the size of your dish.  Don't forget to grease the pie dish with butter before putting the dough in it. Try to roll out the dough as thinly as possible to get a nice crispy crust. Blind bake (that means put some foil on top of the dough and some rice on top of the foil) for about 15 -20 minutes at 180ºC (350ºF) until the dough is golden-brown.  You may have to take the foil and rice off for the last 5 minutes to let all the crust brown well.

For the Crema:

  • Put all the ingredients in a pot and heat at medium heat on the stove top, stirring constantly with a whisk.
  • Stir and stir until it has a "thick" consistency.  When  you pull the whisk through the crema, it should leave a trail behind it that levels out again very slowly.  The mixture should be almost thick enough to pick up with the whisk.
  • Pour the crema into the baked pie crust and leave to cool and set.

For the Strawberries:

  • Rinse and halve or quarter the strawberries (depending on how big they are).  Now it's up to you to use your artistic abilities to decorate the top of it!