Berry Tart

Simple, delicious.

This one went to a hungry crew this past summer. It did not survive intact, it was a bummer. But I heard they still enjoyed it.

1 tart crust - you can see my recipe from a few days before this one
Fresh berries
1 cup coarse chopped semi-sweet chocolate
1/8 cup heavy cream

Melt chocolate in sauce pan on medium-low heat. Add in the cream and mix completely until smooth. remove from heat and pour some into the baked, cooled pie crust and swirl a little coat the edges. Set aside to let firm up completely.

Custard - Vanilla Bean

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk or half and half
8 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 vanilla bean halved and cut lengthwise

Heat milk, cream, and vanilla bean in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until hot but not boiling, you will see steam issuing from the milk when you stir. Stir often. 

While milk heats, whisk together yolks, sugar, and salt in a heatproof bowl until combine.Remove bean from milk once you can smell the vanilla and before you combine the eggs.

Add 1 cup hot milk to yolk mixture in a stream, whisking, then add remaining milk, whisking constantly. Transfer mixture to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 6 to 10 minutes (do not boil and do not over cook, the eggs will separate).Remove from heat and let cook to room temp, pour into pie crust and refirgerate for about 2 hourse before topping with berries.

Once cool, top with berries and drizzle with a little bit of chocolate. 

Serve chilled.

Pies and tarts: a note on dough

I make a lot of pies and tarts, a lot of people ask me about the crusts so here is my basic crust recipe.

This is a standard ratio 3 dry to 1 fat for a crust.

For a double pie crust:
3 cups flour
1 cup butter (chilled or frozen butter) cut into small cubes
1/4 tsp salt
If you want a savoury crust add 1 tablespoon sugar or less
If you want a sweet crust, add 1/4 cup of sugar
6-10 tablespoons of water

Combine flour, butter, sugar, salt well with a pastry blender seen here (http://www.pastrychef.com/PASTRY-BLENDER_p_1157.html). Some chunks of butter may remain, but thats fine, you want the mixture to be touched as little as possible and kept cold. Add a few tablespoons of water and cut it into the mixture with the pastry blender until it begins to pull together. Add a little more water and combine the rest with your hands until it forms a ball. So not over kneed or blend, and touch very little. break into two balls and wrap in plastic or cover bowl with towel.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes and then roll out.

If you want to make a pastry for a tart, the only difference will be the addition of one or two eggs depending on size and the ratio is 2 to 1 flour to fat

1 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup chilled butter
If you want a sweet crust, 1/4 cup sugar (I like brown for this).
If you want a savoury crust use 1/4 tsp salt plus below and only a dash of sugar.
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg , beaten

Much like the pie, but to bring everything together you use egg instead of water.