A new season means fresh ingredients, sunny days, blooming florals and people in general feeling a lot better with fewer colds flying around.
SERVES: 12
For the sweet pastry
125g salted butter
80g caster sugar
4 egg yolks
250g plain flour
For the custard
400ml milk
125g caster sugar
1 zested orange
1 tsp vanilla paste
125ml cream
1 tsp cornflour
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
For the rhubarb
1 bunch of rhubarb
¾ cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste
3 sprigs of thyme
1 orange zest and juice
Method
To start you will need a 25cm tart or quiche tin, well sprayed or buttered to ensure it will be non-stick, and preheat the oven to 180°C fan-bake.
Pastry
For the pastry, I have made mine using a mixer with the scraper attachment. On low speed add the butter and sugar and beat this on high until light and fluffy.
Once you’ve creamed the butter and sugar mix you can add all other ingredients. On low speed to start with the dough will slowly start to come together and become one.
The dough should be well-formed, soft to touch, but not sticky. Turn the dough out on to your bench and form into a small square, wrap this up and pop it away in the fridge.
It is very important the pastry has time to set in the fridge before you roll it and bake it, as this helps it hold its shape and gives you that nice, almost shortbread-like, consistency.
While you are waiting for your dough you can start on your custard and pre-roasting your rhubarb.
Custard
For the custard, start by heating the milk, sugar, zest and vanilla in a small saucepan. Heat this until it starts to get a nice simmering roll on.
While the milk is heating, in a small bowl add the cream, cornflour and eggs, and beat this well with a whisk just until it all comes together.
Once the milk is ready, start adding the milk to the cream and eggs bowl very slowly, mixing as you go. Now add the mix back to the saucepan and over a very low heat, keep beating with your whisk until it becomes nice and thick, then set this a side for later.
Rhubarb
For the rhubarb, cut all the stalks to the same length (about 5cm). In a bowl add the stalks, sugar, vanilla, thyme, zest and juice.
Line a small roasting dish with baking paper. Once you have mixed all the ingredients together, place the rhubarb across the tray evenly.
Place in the oven on the middle shelf and roast until it is starting to colour but has not lost its shape - you do not want to overcook the rhubarb, or it will become hard to work with.
Bake at 180°C for about 15 minutes and keep checking it.
Roll out the pastry
Now that your pastry has had time to rest in the fridge, pull it out and let it warm a little at room temperature to make it easier to roll out.
To roll out the pastry, flatten it between 2 pieces of baking paper and using your rolling pin work the pastry from side to side, making sure that it is being rolled out evenly and making it large enough to cover the 25cm pan.
Grab your well-oiled tart tin, pull one of the papers off the pastry and lay the pastry over the tin, keeping the top layer of paper on for now. Use it to push the pastry into the pan, making sure the pastry is evenly spread across the pan and well-pressed into it, and cut any extra bits of pastry off the edges of the pan.
At this point it is totally up to you if you would like to blind-bake the pastry first, but I found it unnecessary.
Assembly
Once the custard has cooled, fill the pastry with the custard filling, leaving 1cm at the top to add the rhubarb later.
Bake your custard tart at 180°C for 40 minutes. It should get a lovely colour on the top, puff up a wee bit and have good wee wobble to it.
Remove from the oven and let it sit for a couple of minutes before laying the roasted rhubarb on top. Enjoy!
