Fruit Tart. Sweet and nice!

Seems like January is a birthday month to me. Have been doing 3 birthday bakes and one more coming along .. But I don't mind because I love to bake and I can learn alot of things.. hehehe. I hope everyday I can bake something everyday if I could. Anyway this fruit tart consist of pastry cream. This pastry cream is adapted from a cooking book by ....  I like pastry cream alot. You can use it in alot of bake goods like tarts, elcair, bread or cake.. It's sweet and taste like custard. Who doesn't love custard? 

18cm tart pan

(Serves 9)

Tart Base:

180g plain flour 

90g unsalted butter

pinch of salt

2 tsp sugar

2 to 3 tbsp water + one egg yolk 

1 tsp vanilla essence

Egg white for brushing

Pastry Cream:

10g pastry flour

10g corn flour

40grams butter

pinch of salt

15g sugar

200g milk

1/2 vanilla bean, scraped from vanilla bean pod

45g egg yolk (I use about 3)

70grams milk

50grams sugar

Some whipped cream

Topping:

Fresh fruits of your choice

Method:

Mix flour, salt and sugar together in a bowl. 

Rub in butter until it resembles fine crumbs. 

Add in egg yolk mixture and vanilla essence to form a dough. 

Wrap dough in cling wrap and chill for an hour.

Take dough our from fridge and roll out dough bigger then your tart pan.

Transfer to tart pan and cut out excess dough.

Chill again for another 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 180C.

Blind bake the pastry for 20 minutes. Remove tart from oven and brush egg white over and bake for another 15 minutes till golden brown and leave to cool.

Pastry Cream (Custard cream):

Sift corn flour and pastry flour and set aside.

In a saucepan, mix together 200 grams of milk, butter, 20grams sugar, salt and vanilla bean and place saucepan over medium heat.

Stir till butter and sugar is dissolved.

Switch off fire and set aside. 

In a bowl, mix 50 grams sugar and egg yolk. 

Using a hand whisk, whisk till mixture is light in colour.

Add flour mixture and mix evenly. Add in 50 grams milk and mix together. 

Pour butter mixture into egg yolk mixture slowly.

Pour mixture using sieve into another saucepan.

Over medium heat, stir vigourously until mixture becomes thickened and custard like. You will notice bubble popping out from the saucepan. 

Pour custard into a clean bowl. Using ice bath, place custard mixture over the bowl and stir until custard becomes cold. Be careful not to let water get in as it will spoil the custard. 

Keep it refrigerated. Custard cream can be keep for two days in fridge.

Assemble:

Whip up some whipping cream till stiff peaks.

Take out custard cream from fridge and fold whipped cream together.

Pipe custard cream into tart base and decorate with fruits.

Enjoy!