Crème Brûlée Berry Tart
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 45 minutes plus 30 minutes freezing time
Cooking time: 1 hour
For pastry
- 135g/4.8ozs. butter, softened
- 1/4 cup icing sugar, sifted
- 1.5 cups plain all purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons cornflour/fine cornstarch
- Pinch of salt
For filling
- 2 cups cream
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons cornflour/fine cornstarch
- 1/2 cup caster or superfine sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon rosewater
For decoration
- 5 tablespoons caster or superfine sugar
- 200g/7ozs. fresh or frozen berries to decorate (or a mix of the two looks nice)
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Make the pastry first. Place the butter, icing sugar, two types of flour and salt in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on very slow speed until it has just come together. It will be very soft. Press into a 23cm loose bottomed tart tin on the base and sides. Prick the base with a fork and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. This prevents the base from shrinking once baked. Then bake for 20 minutes until golden and set.
Step 2 - While it is baking, make the rose custard. Heat the cream until almost boiling then turn down the heat. While you are waiting for it to heat up, whisk the egg yolks, egg, cornflour and sugar in a jug with the vanilla and rosewater. Add a ladleful of the hot cream mixture to the eggs and then add a few more ladles one at a time. Then return the mixture to the pan on the lowest heat and allow to thicken stirring to make sure that it doesn't stick.
Step 3 - Once the base is cooked, gently pour in the custard filling. Reduce the temperature to 150C/300F and bake for 30 minutes until the centre has a slight wobble. The custard will set further upon cooling.
Step 4 - Just before serving spoon extra sugar on top of the tart and then blowtorch. Place berries around the perimeter of the tart and serve.