These little morsels of custard and pastry are pure perfection, in my humble opinion. Flakey, buttery pastry cups, filled with a homemade vanilla and cinnamon custard. Really - what more could you possibly want?
When I first started looking into the recipe, I was convinced that the dough wasn't worth making from scratch. I was incorrect. So please do take the extra time to go through the process - I promise it's worth it!
The below recipe will make around 12 cupcake sized custard tarts.
Ingredients
Pastry
225gr plain flour
250gr butter, softened
150ml cold water
1/4 tspn salt
Custard
250gr sugar
2/3 cup water
1 cup whole milk
1 cinnamon stick
80gr flour
7 tbsp whole milk
6 egg yolks
1 tspn vanilla paste
1/4 tspn ground cinnamon
Method
1. To make the pastry. In a large bowl, combine the water and plain flour, mixing until incorporated. Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, start to mix using your dough hook until the dough starts to pull from the sides of the bowl. This will form a very sticky dough ball.
2. Flour your work surface heavily. Set your dough on the floured surface and allow to rest for around 10-15 minutes.
3. Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream the softened butter slightly so it can be easily spread. Split into 3 more or less equal portions. Set aside.
4. Sprinkle a good amount of flour on top of your dough and ensure you've floured your rolling pin also. Start rolling out the dough until around 16 x 13 inches. This will be extremely thin and fragile.
5. Spread one portion of the butter on the dough, leaving around an inch of a border free of butter. Using a dough scraper to help free the dough from your surface, we're going to start creating folds. Starting from the top, fold until around the middle, more or less. Repeat with the bottom end of the dough. Repeat with the left and right sides. Don't obsess with this being neat and perfect. It'll look horrific at first, but will slowly start to come together.
6. Rotate the dough 90 degrees, flour your surface heavily again, and roll out once again, until around 16 x 13 inches. You'll start to see streaks of butter coming through. Spread another portion of butter on top. Repeat the folds. Repeat this process one other time, rolling out to around 18 x 16 inches this time, spreading butter, folding.
7. Starting from the bottom of the dough, start rolling it up as tightly as possible. Take your time with this. Once you've gotten to the end, trim off the excess and split the roll in two. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, and ideally, overnight for the butter to harden.
8. To make the custard. In a small saucepan add the sugar and water over low heat. Keep an eye on this, and allow the syrup to come to a boil for around a minute once all the sugar dissolves. Take off the heat.
9. In a small saucepan, heat up the cup of milk along with the vanilla paste and cinnamon stick, allowing it to steep. Once the milk comes to a boil, take off the heat. Add the ground cinnamon.
10. Mix the flour and 7 tablespoons of milk until you form a rough slurry. Pour the hot milk over this and whisk until more or less dissolved. Add the warm sugar mixture and whisk. Pour this into a saucepan over a low heat, and whisk until it starts to thicken.
11. Take the mixture off the heat, and using your hand mixer (or stand mixer) start to whisk on high. Start adding the egg yolks around one at a time - do not stop whisking. If you do so, the eggs will set and start to cook. Adding the eggs slowly and whisking continuously allows for the eggs to temper - meaning they won't scramble. Once all the egg yolks are added, whisk for around 2-4 minutes.
12. Strain the custard through a fine sieve to ensure you're left with a smooth and silky custard. Set aside.
13. Assembling the custard tarts. Preheat your oven to the highest setting possible. My oven only makes it to 250 degrees celsius, but if yours goes higher, set it to the highest setting. Take your dough rolls out of the fridge and cut it into approximately 1.5 inch sections. You should be left with 12 1.5 inch sections.
14. Grease a cupcake tin lightly, set aside.
15. Lightly flour your work surface, and set your dough sections up standing, so to speak, so that the rings of dough and butter are facing upwards. Roll them out large enough to fit the cupcake tin. When rolled out, you should be able to clearly see a spiral of dough and butter. Press into the cupcake mould. Repeat with the rest of the sections. Trim off any excess dough, but leave around 5mm hanging, as the dough will likely shrink in the oven.
16. Fill each tart case around 3/4 of the way full with the custard. Bake for around 10-12 minutes. The custard will start to balloon on top, and the edges will get quite golden. Don't panic if the edges look as if they're burning - the custard tarts are still doing just fine.
17. Take out of the oven and allow to cool down. The custard will deflate - this is normal. It will also set slightly. Do not eat right out of the oven - you will burn yourself.
18. Enjoy with a lovely cup of coffee!
Recreating this recipe? Tag me on instagram @juliawgr!
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