I purchased a posh looking tart case in CoinCasa, an awesome home shop in Lucca. Last year I left 80 euro there, this year a bit less, could easily have ruined my credit card there!

The first tart from the case had to be summery one, with strawberries from my own patch in the garden, some raspberries, shortcrust pastry and creme pat. For the pastry I used 110 g of cold butter, 175 g of plain flour, 25 g of icing sugar, 1 egg yolk and a bit of water to bind it. Once in the case, I chilled it for 30 minutes then blind baked for 12 minutes, beans away for another 15 in about 180 degrees.  Tasty pastry, but so short, that handling it was quite difficult, might try a different ratio next time.

The creme pat was a disappointment, which is shocking, as I used Mary Berry’s method. Might be that I cocked it up! It tasted great, but was too runny even after a  night in the fridge.  I used 3 eggs, 70 g of vanilla sugar ( Mary’s recipe called for 90), 60 g of plain flour and whisked it up, while 400 ml of milk was heating up.  A splash of this milk helped loosen the egg mixture a bit. Hot milk got added slowly to the eggs, altogether returned to the pan and stirred for a few minutes until thickened- was the plan, but it didn’t thicken sufficiently. I also found it quite grainy, but not an issue a sieve couldn’t take care of.  Fresh fruit on top and then a strawberry jelly, half a portion, which I also hurried a bit and it resulted with half  of it messing up my fridge shelf.

So overall I had a good looking tart, at least until I sliced it! It tasted great, but will need more patience next time and a different ratio for the creme pat. Will be done again and improved.