GBBO Egg Custard Tart

Hurrah! It's Wednesday and we all know what that means... no I'm not talking about the depressing idea that it's ONLY halfway through the week (how does it go so slowly?) I am in fact talking about The Great British Bake Off! Duh!

So in honour of GBBO Wednesday I'm once again getting my bake off with a custard tart from last week.

I actually followed Edd Kimber's (off of winning Series One) recipe, choosing to make a simple egg custard tart. I watched his youtube video which was a great step by step recipe to ensure zero soggy-ness on the bottom, and thus a happy Mary and Paul.

I did however have to add more flour for the pastry base and I infused the milk beforehand to help ensure that the vanilla really ran through the custard filling.

So without further ado let's get to it.

Ingredients

You'll need a 9-inch loose bottomed tart tin for this recipe.

For the Pastry;

250g Flour
150g Softened Unsalted Butter
50g Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt

For the Custard;

350ml Single Cream
100ml Whole Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
8 Egg Yolks
100g Caster Sugar
Cinnamon for dusting

1. Start by rubbing the butter and flour together into a bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then mix in the caster sugar and salt until it's fully combined.

2. Then add the egg and mix together with a fork then bring together with your hands. At this point turn it onto a surface (if it's too sticky turn onto a floured surface but if not a cool non-floured surface will do) and bring it together fully. This should take seconds, you don't want to overwork the dough or it will become tough.

3. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge for an hour or so. Meanwhile, place the cream and milk in a pan with the scraped out vanilla seeds and the de-seeded vanilla pod. Heat until tepid, then set aside and leave to infuse.

4. Once the dough is completely cold turn onto a lightly floured surface and roll out until it's big enough to fill the entire tart tin plus some to go over the sides. Roll the dough onto your rolling pin and carefully place into the lightly greased tart tin. (In Edd's recipe be puts the tin on a baking tray so the excess dough has somewhere to fall onto). Don't push the dough down though, but fold so it fits into the tin.

5. Place back in the oven for another half hour to cool down again, this would be a good time to preheat your oven to 180c.

6. After half an hour place a piece of baking parchment that has been scrunched up before hand over the pastry and fill with baking beans/ rice. Place into the oven for 20 minutes. This is the blind baking stage to ensure no bottoms are made soggy.

7. After this time remove the baking beans/ rice and place back in the oven for a further five minutes to brown.

8. In this five minutes separate the egg yolks and turn on the heat on your vanilla infused milk. 

9. Then Ed takes a further step which is to coat the pastry with egg yolk using a pastry brush. Place back into the oven for a further 5 minutes and turn it down to 130c.

10. Then in this time add the sugar to the egg yolk and whisk. Once combined sieve half your hot cream onto the mixture and whisk. Then sieve the other half on.

11. Pour the mixture carefully into the pastry base whilst still in oven (this prevents spilling) and sift the cinnamon on top (only a light dusting). Bake for 30-40 minutes. The custard should have a slight wobble before you remove it from the oven.

12. Once you're happy with the bake remove the tart from the oven you'll want to remove the excess pastry. Do this by cutting it away with a bread knife. When this is done set aside to cool completely.

13. When the tart is fully cooled down place oven a ramekin and remove from the tin.

14. Remove from the tin, serve and enjoy!

So that's it and Happy GBBO day to one and all!

For the full recipe follow the link here