And so to the custard tart. At the same time as making the rough puff for the pear pies I made the pastry that was required for the tart. As I mentioned in my previous post the main influence for my custard tart was a roasted fruit recipe from Nigella. I wanted to incorporate all of these refreshing flavours into my tart it was just a question of how I was going to do this without one flavour overwhelming the others.

Inspiration and influence
For the pastry I liked the idea that Kate and Martha had, that of adding nuts to the pasty to give it extra flavour as well as crispness. I’ve decided to go with and almond shortcrust pastry recipe from Eric Lanlard’s Tart It Up! He says that for this pastry you have to rub the icing sugar, ground almonds and butter together until you reach the breadcrumb stage, then add the flour and eggs. I’ve made pastry a lot in my lifetime and I could see that there was not enough dry ingredients in the bowl for this to work but went with it. After the breadcrumb stage was reached (sort of) the flour and beaten eggs were added to create a dough. After a quick amount of kneading and adding a little more flour the dough was wrapped in cling film and put in the fridge to rest and harden up.

A perfectly poached peach
The peaches for the top of my tart needed to be cooked, the big question was do I cook them in the custard or just add them to the top of the baked custard? Taking some direction from the show and the feedback that Martha and Richard had, I have decided to go with the latter option. I need the flavours to stand out, but blend individually. I think if I baked the peaches in the tart the whole thing could become too wet, and the strength of the peaches would be lost. Therefore I decided that I would poach the fruit along with a vanilla pod, so that there is only a subtle added sweetness to the ripened soft fruit. The peaches needed to be peeled first, and the method used was the same as the one for peeling tomatoes. Simply put them in boiling water for 2 mins, remove and place in cold water. The transfer from hot to cold creates steam underneath the skin and making it easier to remove the peel.

With the peaches is peeled it was time for the poaching. The liquor consisted of water sugar and a vanilla pod, pretty simple really. However, I was worried about the quantity of liquid, as it didn’t look like enough to cover the fruit, but does this does that matter? I don’t know, so I decided to poach the fruit with the lid on and turn the peaches half way through the 10 minutes required to get them perfectly poached. After the time was up the fruit was transferred to a tuppaware pot, along with the syrup and left to infuse for a minimum of 24 hours, or until needed, which in my case ended up being about 48 hours! Explanation to come…

Everybody needs good neighbours
When the time came to baking the tart, the friendship of my parents and their neighbours was requested. Due to mum not having a kitchen at this time, let alone an oven, I was able to use the neighbours kitchen for the this next step. Rolling out the pastry in the al fresco kitchen of my parents garden, was easy enough although trying to do it between two sheets of clingfilm is not an easy one. There was a little bit of adjustment needed to align the pastry in the tart tin, which then meant there was a little bit of patching up too. As the pastry was warming up quickly it was clear it needed to be chilled before the blind bake. Waiting for the neighbours oven heat up to temp seemed to take an age, but on the plus side that gave me time make the custard.

Suspicions mounting
After looking around online I found a recipe by Jun Tanaka for custard tart and earl grey prunes. I’ve watched Tanaka cook a few times on BBC Saturday’s Kitchen and always found them delicious and enticing. I would love to visit his restaurant, but finances won’t allow that just now. Deciding to use his custard recipe I boiled the milk and vanilla over a camping stove in the garden and whisked the 5 egg yolks and sugar separately until pale. The hot milk was then poured slowly over the eggs, mixing all the time until everything is combined, then I added a tbsp of the orange flower water. I have made custard and crème patisserie before and this mix looked a little thin, but I thought trust in the recipe.

When the oven was up to temp the base of the pastry tart was pricked with a fork, a baking sheet put over the top and baking beads added to be able to bake the case blind. After fifteen minutes the beads were removed and the case inspected. It was not as flat as I would have liked, there were air bubbles in the base of the tart and the sides had slipped, not ideal when you want a level bottom for your custard. The tart went back in the oven for another 5 minutes while I got the custard ready to pour into the case.

The next bit of the bake was always going to be tricky as I don’t have the fancy oven that they have on the bake off, the one with the fancy telescopic sliding shelves. With as steady a hand as I could manage the custard was poured in and the tart case gently pushed it back into the oven. Then bugger, gently was not gently enough and on the last nudge a little but rippled over the edge. Grrrrrr! Anyway with irritation I closed the oven door and waited for 45 minutes for it to cook.

WTF?
After the time was up and the tart was ready to come out. I was looking for a slight wobble in the middle of the tart but nothing like what I was greeted with. I didn’t have wobble, I had the same liquid as what I had poured in! There was no amount of extra cooking that was going to make this set. I will admit that there was a bit of swearing and stamping, and eventually I had a bingate of my very own!

Reflection
It was only after a nights sleep that I was even able to contemplate tackling this challenge again. After the chaos that the pear pies turned into, I decided to leave the second attempt to when I was back in my own kitchen.

This time I decided to make the pastry my way, with the same ingredients, but with all the dry components and butter rubbed together first then adding the beaten egg, adding it slowly and adding only just the amount needed to bring it all together. Much better.

With the pastry chilling it was time to do the research into the previous attempt at the custard.

Custard 2.0
The general conclusion was that there was simple not enough egg to set the custard in comparison to the amount of milk used. After reading through a few more recipes I decided to put my faith in a previous bake off contestant and winner, Edd Kimber and his recipe posted on The Independent site. This one uses cream, milk and 8 egg yolks1 With that amount of eggs it better bloody set this time!

It was the same process as before, however I added the 1tbsp of orange flower water to the warm milk before mixing it all with the eggs. Once combined I was left with a thicker custard than before and one I had more faith in.

Blind bake no.2
When it came to rolling out the pastry for this second version of the tart the pastry seemed easier to work with, maybe because wasn’t trying to do it outside! Once it was in the tin, it was another blind bake session, but this time I have decided not of prick the bottom, and make sure that the baking beads are well distributed into the corners of the tin. My timings were different too, I baked it blind for 20mins, removed the beads and baked for another 5, then egg washed the bottom to seal it from the filling and baked for another 5. Perfect.

This time, with the help of the boyfriend’s steady hands we managed to pour the custard into the pastry case and slide it back in the oven without any spillages. Now I just had to sit down and pray to the baking peeps on high that it would work!

Yippee, success…even if it was delayed.
When the 40 mins were up, it was time for the dreaded wobble test. It was certainly a lot better than before, although I felt it needed a bit longer so it stayed in the oven for an extra 10minutes until I was happy with it.

Finishing touches
As I mentioned earlier the poached peaches had been infusing I the fridge, for 48hrs rather than the 24 stated in the recipe I was using. This was mainly because not everything had gone to plan and the good tart didn’t come out of the oven until 10pm on Sunday night.

The final tarting up didn’t happen until the Monday evening and thankfully this bit was easy. Half the peaches, without squishing them, remove the stone then slice each half into 5/6 slices. The next bit was to arrange them on the top of custard in a pretty circular pattern and top off with the blueberries. After the chaos of the bake it was nice finish with something that was almost calming.

Result
There was no soggy bottom, and the flavours worked better than I had expected. I was worried that the orange flower water flavour would either be lost in the baking process or be too overpowering but I think I got the balance just right. The custard although nice tasting probably needs a bit more experimenting. Although it was set, it was a soft set and even though it worked well, would it have worked better with a harder set?

Considering the circumstances that it took to make this signature bake, it turned out ok, eventually! I can confidently say that I have learned a few things this week!