Serves 8
| |
Pastry shell: |
| 1 1/3 |
cups flour (scooped and leveled) |
| 3 |
to 7 tablespoons granulated sugar |
| 1/8 |
teaspoon double-action baking powder |
| 7 |
tablespoons fat: 5 tablespoons chilled butter and 2 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening |
| 1 |
egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water |
| |
Crème pa^tissière (custard filling): |
| 1 |
cup granulated sugar |
| 5 |
egg yolks |
| 1/2 |
cup flour (scooped and leveled) |
| 2 |
cups milk |
| 1 |
tablespoon butter |
| 2 |
to 3 tablespoons kirsch or cognac |
| |
Fruitand fruit glaze: |
| 1 |
quart large, ripe, handsome strawberries |
| 1 |
cup red currant jelly |
| 2 |
tablespoons granulated sugar |
| 2 |
tablespoons kirsch or cognac |
Make pastry shell: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, butter and vegetable shortening in 3-quart mixing bowl. Rub fat and dry ingredients together rapidly with tips of fingers until fat is broken into bits the size of small oatmeal flakes. Blend in egg and vanilla and knead dough rapidly into a ball. Place on pastry board and, with the heel of your hand, rapidly press pastry by two-spoonful bits down on the board and away from you in a firm, quick smear of about 6 inches. Dough will be quite sticky if you have used the full amount of sugar. Form again into a ball. Wrap in waxed paper and chill several hours until firm.
Mold pastry in a flan ring or false-bottomed cake pan. Use foil, beans or a bean-filled mold to hold sides in place.
Bake in middle level of oven for 5 to 6 minutes until dough is set. Then remove lining, prick bottom of pastry with fork in several places and bake 8 to 10 minutes more. Shell is done when it has shrunk slightly from mold and begins to brown very lightly. Immediately remove mold from the shell and slip shell onto a rack. It will become crusty as it cools.
Make the crème pa^tissière (custard filling):
Into a 3-quart mixing bowl, use wire whip or electric beater to gradually beat sugar into egg yolks. Continue beating 2 to 3 minutes until mixture is pale yellow.
Beat in flour. Bring milk to boil. Beating yolk mixture, gradually pour in a thin stream of droplets of boiling milk.
Pour into heavy-bottomed, 2 1/2-quart saucepan and set over moderately high heat. Stir with wire whip, reaching all over bottom of pan. As sauce comes to boil it will get lumpy but it will smooth out as you beat it. When boil is reached, beat over moderately low heat for 2 to 3 minutes to cook flour. Be careful custard does not scorch in bottom of pan.
Remove from heat and beat in butter, then kirsch or cognac. Let cool.
Prepare fruit and glaze: Hull strawberries. If necessary to wash them, do so very quickly, and drain on rack.
Boil currant jelly, sugar and liqueur in small saucepan until the last drops from spoon are sticky (228 degrees). Paint interior of shell with thin coating of glaze and allow to set for 5 minutes. Reserve rest of glaze for the strawberries. Warm it briefly if it has hardened.
To assemble tart: Spread 1/2-inch layer of crème pa^tissière in the bottom of pastry shell.
Arrange a design of strawberries over the cream. Put largest strawberry in center and graduate down in size, placing berries closely together, stem ends in the cream. Spoon or paint over them a thin coating of the glaze, and tart is ready to serve.
