Berry Blue Tuesday Blueberry Vanilla Tart

Today’s inspiration is a verbatim (well, almost verbatim) recipe from Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine, and also features in Bathers’ Pavilion Menus and Recipes by Serge Dansereau. Normally I deconstruct recipes to make them my own, but when it comes to desserts I lack this creative flare, and I seldom bend the rules.

I spent yesterday in hospital. It was a playground for people watching, which had my mind racing like a merry-go-round, a rusty merry-go-round on its last dilapidated legs. As I conjured up images of what my future may hold (how could I help it with all of these unwell and mostly elderly folk sitting in the sidelines), I had the usual waiting room magazine diversions, and I could cast my mind back to the cuisine and couture of years gone by, reading trashy and passé magazines borne of another decade. I found a few diamonds in the rough, a relatively recent Australian Gourmet Traveller, being one of them. With a little treasure chest from the bottom of the hospital's literature ocean in my trembling fingers, I was able to find today’s recipe, but in the back of my mind, I continued to cast my thoughts in to the future, my health future.

I could not help but wonder, how much do I have left in my bank? My body bank? What niggling ache or pain will I have in 10, 20, 30, 40 years time? On a more superficial front, how many fashion faux pas will I be guilty of? Will my addiction to higher than high heels render my knees useless, whittled away to dust? When will I have to ditch the stilettos for something more practical? Will my metabolism wind down so much that this blogging gene really catches up with me? When will my skinny jeans mutate into Fortrels®? On a more sombre note, when shit hits the fan, who will be my ‘wing man’ escorting me through these nosocomial hallways? Will the magazines have changed? Will I have a sense of humour about my ailments? And of course, this got me thinking to what I can do now to ensure there are at least a few trump cards in my body bank.

I am now 32; in 32 more years I will be 64. I do not eat processed foods, and I have not had fast food in a number of months. I have finally embraced exercise as part of my weekly routine, and have to say I am enjoying it considerably. I am trying to minimise carbohydrates, but not eliminate them – this is my vice. And, of course more organic fruits and vegetables are becoming part of the daily repertoire. I know I need to eat more berries, dark luscious berries, and hence the choice of this dessert. I am not going to stop enjoying food, in fact I am going to relish in all of those things I love, with healthy interpretations when I can, in moderation. And while this is not the healthiest of desserts – share one with me that really is – I am pleased it has me eating more berries! And in our household, desserts feature once or twice a month, so a once in awhile indulgence is permissible, or this is what I tell myself. After having had some reflection on building up my body bank and stacking it high with trump cards, my body currency has to be trending better than it has been in the past, but like anyone I have cravings. These vanilla tarts even stack up to the ones I used to give in to at Le Pâtissier Chocolatier in Neutral Bay (Sydney), consequently just on the way to Balmoral Beach, home of the Bathers' Pavillion, birth place of this recipe and a favorite destination of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Ingredients & Preparation:

Tart:

225g (1 cup) unsalted butter

100g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

350g (2 3/4 cup) plain flour

3-4 punnets ripe blueberries and/or raspberries, rinsed and towel dried (note: original recipe only calls for blueberries)

icing sugar, to dust

Frangipane Filling:

100g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

100g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

3 eggs

40g (1/3 cup) plain flour

125g (2/3 cup) ground almonds

Vanilla Custard Filling:

1 litre (4 cups) milk

2 vanilla beans, split

250g (1 1/4 cup) white sugar

6 egg yolks

40g (1/3 cup) plain flour

40g (1/3 cup) corn flour

Frangipane filling: In an electric mixer, beat the butter and cast sugar for 2 minutes. Then add the eggs, slowly, beating until well combined. Sift the flour and ground almonds, and add to the butter mixture. Beat for a further minute, transfer to a bowl and refrigerate overnight covered with plastic wrap. (Note: I refrigerated this for 6-8 hours and it was okay).

Pastry: Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until very pale, then beat in the egg. Gradually add the flour and mix to a smooth paste. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Roll out the pastry to 3mm thickness and use it to line 8 individual 7.5cm-diameter tartlet tins. Once you have lined the tartlet tins with pastry, chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and blind bake for 10 minutes or until starting to get golden brown. Remove from oven, add a tablespoon of frangipane filling to each tart and bake for a further 10 minutes, until golden brown.

Vanilla Custard: Bring the milk, vanilla beans and sugar to a boil, slowly. Cream egg yolks and flours together and pour the slowly boiled liquid into this egg mixture once the vanilla beans have infused well. I actually only kept the vanilla beans in the mixture for about half the time I was heating this up, as I found the vanilla taste was becoming very strong. Mix well. Using an electric mixer whilst you are adding the eggs mixture to the milk and sugar mixture will ensure that the eggs do not curdle or cook too quickly. Return the entire mixture to the heat and cook on low heat, stirring or mixing with an electric mixer until thickening occurs. Continue to mix on low heat and cook out the flour taste for a further 5 minutes. Pass through a sieve and place into a bowl with some baking paper on top to stop a skin from forming. When the mixture has cooled to room temperature, spoon a level amount of the custard into each cooked pastry tart.

To serve: While the vanilla custard is still at room temperature in the tart shells, place the berries tightly packed on top of the custard and dust with icing sugar to serve.

This is perhaps the best pastry I have had in a very long time. I can't wait to make this in summer when fresh berries are in abundance and in season. At $8 per punnet, I think I will need to find some winter dessert alternatives! Regardless, it was amazing and worth the indulgence.

Bon Appetit!