Just even thinking about this dessert is making my mouth water. The first time I had the “original” creme brulee tart was about 6 or 7 years ago. One of my friends brought a box of pastries over when I was cooking dinner for a chick night. I completely forgot about them until after everyone left. I opened the box to find 5 gorgeous tarts, a brulee tart, a chocolate one, lemon and I think there were a couple of fruit and almond ones too.
Even though I was full to the point of bursting I couldn’t resist tasting them. About ten minutes later I had eaten 3 of them!
Oopps!!
The creme de la creme was the ginger and pistachio creme brulee tart (pardon the pun).
From that day onwards I have been addicted to them. The pastry is very light, crisp and flaky and the filling is lushiously smooth and creamy with a crunchy layer of thin toffee in the top. Dribble!!!
Recently I google searched “Bourke Street Bakery Brulee Tart” and managed to find a recipe on someone’s blog.
SCORE!!!!!
I have made it twice now with great success. I made individual small tarts the first time and one large tart the second time.
The pasty first time was better as I followed the instructions to the letter – second time I rushed it a wee bit and also had an oven malfunction mid way through baking the pastry blind.
Never the less both worked well and were absolutely delicious.
I am going to give you the recipe for the single larger tart which will serve about 8 – 10 portions depending on how greedy you are…..
Ingredients:
Pastry
330 grams of plain flour
200 grams of unsalted butter
50 grams of unrefined caster sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon of white vinegar
80 mls of icy cold water
Filling – Custard
700 mls double cream (make sure it is pure cream not thickened creme)
10 egg yolks (ideally organic free range)
80 grams of caster sugar
1 vanilla bean
Fresh ginger (1 medium to large root which is approx 1/2 fist size)
Filling – rhubarb
1 bunch of rhubarb
3/4 cup unrefined caster sugar
Brulee
Icing sugar
Blow torch (this is kind of essential)
I recommend you make the pastry the day before and leave it chilling in the fridge over night wrapped in cling wrap.
Pastry – method
Remove butter from fridge 20 mins before you need to use it – if you are in very hot weather (Oz in summer) do this 5 – 10 mins before you need it.
Mix the icy cold water with the sugar and the vinegar (ideally chill down the vinegar in the fridge) I added a little less water and an ice cube to make sure that the mix was VERY cold. Stir well to combine and leave for 10 mins.
Sift flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Chop the butter into 1 cm cubes and add to flour mix. Very gently rub the butter into the flour. You do not want the usual bread crumb look, it should be chunkier than that so do not over mix/rub the butter in. You should still be able to see the butter pieces. Once you have the mix to this stage turn out onto a clean work top (ideally stone or marble as it is colder).
Stir the sugar, water, vinegar mix to make sure it is well combined and sprinkle over the top of the flour mix. Not it is important to work quickly here and also it is VERY important not to over work the pastry.
Take the heel of your hand and smear the pastry mix across the bench. Gather and do this again. You should only need to do this a couple of times and then press the pastry together into a ball.
Flatten to a disc and wrap in cling wrap and leave in fridge over night (if you are not able to make the pastry the day before you can do it on the day but make sure you leave it to rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours).
Bring pastry disc out of the fridge 20 mins before you wish to roll it out. Lightly sprinkle the bench top with flour (not too much). Gentle roll out to a large disc about 3 – 4 mm thick. Place pastry on a grease proof paper lined baking sheet and wrap in cling wrap and place in fridge again for another 2 hours.
This is REALLY important and will ensure that your pastry does not shrink too much and that it is crisp.
After 2 hours take a 24 cm loose bottom flan tin and grease with softened butter, I use a non stick one and grease it too just in case.
Remove the pastry from the fridge and line the flan tin. Press the pasty into the tin and push the pastry down the sides – this will also reduce the likelihood of the pastry shrinking.
Cut the pastry slightly about the top of the flan tin and pinch the edge to finish.
Wrap in cling wrap and place in the freezer for 20 – 30 mins.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius.
Remove the flan tin from the freezer, line with grease proof paper and fill with pastry weights. (I use rice however I have just watched a cooking show where they use coins – this helps cook the pastry case from below and above which I think is an excellent idea – will try that next time.)
Bake in oven for 20 mins or until golden and crispy.
Remove greaseproof paper and cook for another 5 mins.
Remove from the oven and cook.
Custard – method
Put cream, washed/scrubbed and sliced ginger and vanilla pod and seeds into a heavy based pot. To remove the seeds from the vanilla pod flatten it as much as you can then cut it down the middle (like filleting a fish) and scrap the seeds out with the back of a knife. Scrap seeds into pot and add the pods too.
Bring cream to the boil and then remove from the heat and rest for 10 mins.
Separate eggs and put egg yolks in a large metal bowl, add sugar and whisk to combine.
Take a medium sized pot and 1/3 fill with boiling water, bring back to a simmer.
Pour the cream mix through a sieve and into the egg/sugar mix whisk to combine. Put metal bowl on top of the simmering water making sure that the water does not touch the base of the bowl.
Whisk continuously until the custard thickens. Every couple of minutes make sure you take a spatula and scrap the sides down into the mix to ensure you do not get “scrambled” egg at the sides of the bowl.
The custard should get really quite thick and will take 10 – 15 mins approx to get to this stage (about as thick as salad cream)
Once the custard is at this stage remove from the heat making sure you do not scald yourself with steam.
Whisk ever 5 minutes until the custard has cooled.
Decant into a bowl and cover with cling wrap. Make sure the cling wrap is laying directly on top of the custard mix to prevent a skin forming.
Leave in fridge over night ideally or 4 hours if making it the same day. You can put it in the freezer for an hour to speed things along but make sure you stir it and replace the cling wrap after you then put it in the fridge.
Rhubarb – filling
Wash and finely slice rhubarb and add to a heavy based pan with the sugar. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer until rhubarb is fully cooked and collapsed – this should take 10 – 15 mins. Leave to cool slightly then strain through a sieve. Remove as much of the syrupy liquid from the rhubarb as you can but make sure you keep this as for a pouring sauce.
Once the pastry case has been baked and is ready, the custard is made and has been in the fridge for at least 4 hours (ideally over night), the rhubarb is strained and cooled you can assemble your tart.
Spread the rhubarb puree evenly over the base of the tart then fill the tart with the custard and use a spatula or palate knife to spread evenly over the top and right to the edge. Ideally you want it to be flush to the top of the pastry edge even slightly covering the edge. This is to prevent the pastry burning when you brulee the top of the tart.
Use a small sieve and liberally dust the top of the tart with icing sugar.
Brulee the top of the tart with a blow torch.
Put the tart back in the fridge for another couple of hours to set again – the custard will liquify a little from the heat of the blow torch.
Once chilled serve in slices with the rhubarb syrup poured over the top.
Yummy yummy yummy….
It does seem like a right palaver but it is DEFINITELY worth it.
You do not have to add the ginger if you do not like ginger and you can use different fruit if you do not have rhubarb e.g. Plum, quince, pear, apple, peach, strawberries other berries. If you are using berries you do not really need to cook them you can just blend them with some icing sugar then strain through a sieve. You may need to do this a coupe of times, first to remove excess seeds then secondly to remove water (maybe through a bit of kitchen paper).
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