Custard Tart..

I'm a complete sucker for a Custard Slice, you know - the ones you get in those quaint little patisseries -  with the crisp pastry and thick icing, which is impossible to break without the custard oozing out..! Therefore, I've reshuffled the good old Custard Slice and I present to you the Custard Tart! This has everything wonderful about the Slice but bigger and easier to share (although if you didn't, it would be understandable..!)

Therefore to serve up this beauty, you'll need:

•  1 x batch of Perfect every time Shortcrust Pastry
• 4 Egg Yolks
• 60g of Caster Sugar
• 125 ml of full-fat Milk
• 150 ml of Double Cream
• 1 tsp of Vanilla Bean Paste
• 200g of Icing Sugar
• 1 tbsp of Water
• 50g of Dark Chocolate
• Baking Parchment
• Ceramic baking beans or dried out lentils - for the blind baking

Preheat your oven to 180C Fan/400F/Gas Mark 6.

You'll need to start off by blind baking your pastry, I use this really handy pastry mat, so I know roughly how far I'm rolling my pastry out to.

So dust your surface with flour liberally and place your chilled pastry in the centre. Start to roll out the pastry and try to keep a circular shape (it'll make life easier!)

When you've rolled your pastry out to about half a centimetre, place your rolling pin in the centre and flip the pastry over it.

 Then lift and cover your tart tin.

Using a bit of excess pastry, gently push your pastry into the grooves of the tin, so the ridged pattern should be fairly visible. 

When you're happy that your tin is well covered, using your rolling pin, firmly roll the pin across the top of the tin - this will cut the edges and give you a neat finish.

 Ta-dah! Now prick the base with a fork - this will prevent the pastry from rising too much.

Then line your base with baking parchment and pop in your baking beans.

Pop your lined tart into the oven for 12-15 minutes, then remove the ceramic beans and greasproof paper and pop back in for another five minutes.

Then pop to the side and you start on the custard!

Whisk the Eggs and Caster Sugar together in a bowl until paler in colour and  well mixed.

Then pour the Milk, Cream and Vanilla Bean Paste into a saucepan and pop onto the hob. Now you want to heat this until it is almost boiling - but not quite, so keep an eagle eye on it and remove from the heat as soon as its about to boil!

Then adding little by little, pour the hot Cream/ Milk mixture onto your whisked eggs and continue to whisk the mixture carefully.

When the whole mixture is incorporated, pop back into the saucepan and on a low heat. Keep stirring it until it becomes a thicker mixture, it will take about 15 -20 minutes, but eventually it will thicken and you'll have a beautiful custard!

It should just cover the back of your spatula - hurrah!

Carefully pour the mixture into your pastry case and pop into the oven (at the same temperature as before) for about 30 -35 minutes or until the custard is set but has a little wobble in the centre. 

Leave your rather delicious Tart for an hour or two, so that its fairly cool before you ice it. 

Pop your Chocolate into a disposable piping bag and zap in the microwave for about thirty seconds until its all melted, then snip the end of the bag - I find this a really hand way to reduce washing up and you don't lose any Chocolate!

Then in a large bowl, add a couple of drops of water to your icing sugar and work together until you have a thick consistency.

 Pour this icing onto your Custard tart and using  the back of a spoon, spread all over and up to the edges.

Then with your melted chocolate, pipe some rough circles into the icing (Don't worry if it's not neat - mine were ridiculously clumsy!)

 With a cocktail stick draw lines from the centre outwards (cleaning the stick after each line) repeat this the whole way around your tart.

And there you have it - one incredibly tempting Custard Tart!

Troubleshooting..

• If you feel that your custard is really not thickening turn the heat up slightly, but keep stirring - it'll turn quickly!
• When you add the warm Cream/Milk to the egg and it appears to have split - your mixture is probably too hot and you've added it too quickly - the best thing to do is to start again 
• If when you drag the cocktail stick from the centre of the icing out, the icing is starting to form slight ridges, your icing is starting to set - you can continue with feathering it but it may be a little resistant!