Strawberry Tarts

photo of tarts

Beautiful strawberry tarts from Edd Kimber’s book The Boy Who Bakes. I have made these once before, and they are a force to be reckoned with. For some reason, tarts have been on the menu of late… Perhaps it’s tartlicious weather.

“Delicious! Mmmmmm.” – words spoken by a fan of the said strawberry tart.

Ingredients

  • Sweet Pastry – 275g plain flour
  • 25g ground almonds
  • 50g icing sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
  • 175g unsalted butter
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon iced water

Directions

  1. Pulse the flour, ground almonds, icing sugar and salt together in a food processor to combine. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and add to the flour mixture.
  2. Pulse the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs – it’s ok to have a few lumps.
  3. Mix the egg yolk and the iced water and add to the mixture, pulsing until the dough just starts to come together. Add a little more water if the dough is not coming together.
  4. Knead the dough lightly until uniform on your work surface. Shape into 2 discs and wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Ingredients

  • Strawberry Tarts – 170g unsalted butter at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
  • 170g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 280g ground almonds
  • 200g strawberry jam (I make my own quick jam – strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a pan)
  • 150g strawberries, sliced, diced or however you’d like them to appear on top
  • flour for dusting

Directions

  1. Lightly grease eight 10cm individual tart tins and set aside. Remove the chilled pastry from the fridge and allow it to rest for 10 minutes. Lightly flour the work surface and the rolling pin and roll out the pastry until 3 – 4mm thick. Cut out rounds of pastry about 14cm in diameter and gently press into the tins. Trim off the excess pastry and chill for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200˚C.
  2. To make the frangipane filling, beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at at imd until wholly combined, then stir in the almonds.
  3. Line each tin with a piece of baking paper and fill with a layer of baking beans or rice. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and the beans then bake for a further 10 minutes or until the tarts start to turn golden. Reduce the oven to 180˚C.
  4. Remove the tarts from the oven and divide the jam evenly among the tarts. Add the frangipane, spreading evenly across the pastry cases. Top with the strawberries. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until the frangipane filling has turned a light golden brown. Allow to cool and then dust with icing sugar or, as I did, drizzle with melted chocolate.

 

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