Caramel Custard Tart
How can you improve a classic custard tart? Just add caramel!
This tart is absolutely delicious. The custard is smooth and melts in your mouth while the pastry is nice and crumbly. Perfect texture combination and the colour of the custard is just mesmerising.
If you’ve made a custard tart before you’ll notice that this version is not particularly different. The ingredients are basically the same and the only difference is in how you introduce the sugar in the custard. You would normally either beat part of the yolks with the sugar and dissolve the rest in the double cream. In this case, you will use your sugar to make direct caramel that you will then mix with the cream and finally with your eggs.
Ingredients
For the pastry
250g of all purpose flour
1 pinch of salt
125g of butter
100g caster sugar + 2 tbsp
5g of egg white
35g of yolk
Egg white for brushing
For the caramel custard
150g caster sugar
700ml double cream
240g egg yolk
1 Pinch of salt
I used an 8” deep tart tin. If you don’t have a deep tin divide the caramel custard ingredients by two or you’ll be left with a lot of unused custard
Step by Step
Pastry
In your stand mixer, cream the butter with the sugar
Add in the eggs and keep mixing
At last, add in the flour and salt. As soon as the ingredients start coming together and resemble breadcrumbs take them out of the mixer and use your hands to compact them into one pastry ball. Wrap it in cling film and rest it in the fridge for a couple of hours
After the fridge rest it’s time to roll out your pastry and line your tart case
I like to roll my pastry between two pieces of parchment paper that I lightly dust with flour. This allows me to be more precise
Line your tin making sure you don’t pull/stretch your pastry too hard. You will not need to butter or line your tin. The high fat content of fat in the pastry will do the job and prevent the pastry from sticking. Once lined, with a knife cut the excess pastry from the top of the tin. Place the tin in the fridge covered with cling film. You want it to be rock hard before it goes in the oven
Preheat your oven at 180 and blind bake your pastry. You can do this with or without baking beans. I’d recommend you follow your usual process from blind baking a tart shell
You want the pastry to be cooked but not too much as it will have to spend more time in the oven once you pour the custard. Aim for a slightly golden colour
Once it’s ready, take it out of the oven and brush the bottom with egg whites and put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes. This will seal the bottom of your pastry and will help prevent leakage once you pour the custard
Caramel Custard
Put your yolks in a bowl and add the two tablespoons of sugar and whisk them with a fork. Put the bowl aside
Make direct caramel in a heavy bottom pan. Place your sugar and let it melt until it reaches a nice amber colour. It will take roughly 10min. You can carefully use a wooden spoon or alternatively swirl the pan with your hand occasionally. This will help the sugar to melt uniformly
As soon as your caramel has reached the desired colour gradually pour in the double cream and mix it with a whisk. Do it gradually and be careful as it might splash. Don’t get alarmed if it looks ugly and if you can feel hard caramel pieces on your whisk. Keep whisking and the heat will eventually melt any uneven bits giving you a gorgeous caramel cream
Now pour some of caramel cream in your bowl with the eggs and mix with a hand whisk. Repeat adding more caramel cream. Keep going and mix the two until fully combined
Your custard is ready to be baked but, before you pour it in your tart shell pass it through a sieve to make sure you get a smooth custard
Once poured in the tart shell bake it in a preheated oven at 150 C for 30 to 40min . You tart is ready when you can still see a little wobble in the centre of the tart.
Let it cool down and enjoy!
