Strawberry and cream tarts
- Recipe by Shane Smith -
A WORD FROM THE CHEF
One of my many Summer highlights is the first bowl of strawberries and cream. It’s such a beautiful combination that I try not to over complicate it when using them in a dessert.
One of the main reasons I love these tarts, the strawberries are the star of the show and rightly so! The sweet pastry dough can be made in advance and the uncooked dough can be frozen until needed. If you don’t have individual tart rings, you can easily make one large tart instead.
Your dessert will only be as good as the ingredients you use and it doesn’t get much better than Irish strawberries.
INGREDIENTS
(Makes 6)
Sweet pastry
125g butter
125g caster sugar
1 medium egg
Dash vanilla essence
250g plain flour
250ml cream
Two punnets of Irish strawberries
METHOD
· For the sweet pastry, cream the butter and sugar until soft and pale.
· Add the egg, vanilla and combine.
· Finally add the flour and mix until there is no trace of flour left.
· Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
· Grease 6 round loose bottom tart shells (4.5” x 1”) with butter and dust with flour. Set aside.
· Roll the chilled pastry on a floured work surface and once the pastry is 0.5cm thin, line the 6 rings.
· Remove the excess pastry and chill for ten minutes.
· Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 160ºC Fan / Gas 3 / 320ºF .
· Line the chilled shells with parchment paper and fill with baking beans and blind bake for 10-12 minutes or until the top of the pastry starts to go golden brown.
· At this point carefully remove the baking beans and return the shells to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the shells are golden brown all over. Remove and allow to cool.
· To assemble, 3/4 fill each shell with semi whipped cream and arrange the sliced strawberries on top an simply enjoy!
ABOUT THE CHEF
Shane Smith from Lavey can be seen on Today with Maura and Daithí on RTE One. You can email him at: shane@chefshanesmith.ie
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