It wasn't until putting the pictures together for this post did I realize that this summer and fall had some pretty major, USA-related baking. (USA! USA! US...ok.) While the Star Spangled Banner is not something that surges through our blood every day, it sure does inspire some tasty pastry.
For the 4th of July we found ourselves hosting a party that included a whole bunch of folks we didn't really know. (But also, some friends that we absolutely love!) We had just moved into a huge new house and figured, why not? Let's have some friendly people over for some grilling, bocce, and fireworks. As always, I can't be a part of a party and not feel like something delicious absolutely needed to be made. Since it was summer, blueberries and strawberries were flooding the farmer's market. So, we whipped up a berry tart (eventually dubbed the "patriot tart").
Making this, I was reminiscing about my childhood when my dad would take me out for fruit tarts, with their chewy shortcake crusts, thinly sliced mix of colorful fruits--kiwis! Melon! Raspberries!--and the irresistable, shiny gelatine covering that no child can resist (shiny AND delicious? Yes please!) I made a basic shortcake crust for my trust 10-inch tart pan, blind baked it, and we were ready to fill it.
Pastry cream, I think, is the key to this tart. I've had vanilla beans stored in a container in the spice cupboard -- they're always handy to have around, and whenever I have extra, I'll put some in sugar for an extra treat in coffee, or other baking endeavors. We scraped a vanilla pod into about 1.5 cups of whole milk, then slowly began to heat it up for the flavors to infuse. Then we whipped up about 5 egg yolks with just under a cup (maybe 2/3, 3/4) of sugar till creamy, and added a couple tablespoons of cornstarch. Then, we added the hot milk into the egg mixture in batches, so as not to cook the egg.
Once that was all mixed up, the entire mixture went back in the saucepan over low heat. At this point, the big question was "how will we know when it's done?" But, it's really obvious and for me, quite alarming -- after a couple minutes of heat, the mixture began to thicken up REALLY fast! You end up with a big saucepan of hot pudding that smells delicious.
Next (and this is the part where it helped to have 2 people), we pushed the custard through a sieve. I think I held the pot while Mark took a spatula to work it through the sieve. Resist the urge to plop it all into your tart - fill a bowl and let it cool! Then, spread it all over the tart, cover it with cut berries however you want (here, my desires to make a kitschy flag design were foiled -- concentric circles it was), and voila, you have a tart.
The only "disaster," I think, was my weird urge to make that shiny covering. I know that there are lots of recipes out there to help you do this, so pick one you like and follow it. I had read somewhere that you could heat up some red currant jam with a bit of water and brush it over the berries, which would make a nice red glaze. I had never had red currant jam before, but I picked some up at a grocery store and heated some up. I noted at the time that I wasn't a big fan of how red currant jam smelled, but I went ahead and brushed it on. Here, we should note that if you don't like how something smells, you probably shouldn't buy a whole huge jar of it for possible future use. This jam has been sitting in our fridge since then, just waiting to be thrown away.
Anyway, we may have added too much water to our jam for spreading because it was pretty thin, and it didn't really set very well. But, the tart was still delicious anyway -- big, fat strawberries, sweet blueberries, and a deliciously vanilla-y cream. Enjoy for the 4th of July, then go watch things explode.
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