I can’t resist a bargain, so when strawbs were on offer at the weekend I snapped a few punnets up – well four actually. It’s not long before they start going gooey, so it was definitely time to get them involved with some baking.
First up I decided to make a strawberry tart. I’d been sent a recipe from the people at Total Greek Yoghurt so this helped me make a dent in the half a tonne of yoghurt still in my fridge, along with the pre-cooked tart case that’s been hanging around aimlessly in my baking cupboard, as well as the glut of strawberries – brilliant!
Baked Strawberry Tart
Prep time 15 minutes Cooking time 40 minutes Serves 8
Ingredients
1 x 8inch shop brought raw flan case (preferably sweet pasty but short crust will do)
300g strawberries, washed, dried and husks removed
2 eggs
50g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
75ml double cream
75g TOTAL 2% Greek yoghurt
A little icing sugar to sprinkle
Method
Set oven at 180c, blind bake flan in usual method using rice or baking beans for 10 minutes. Remove baking beans and bake for a further 5 minutes, this will stop the bottom of your tart being soggy.
Cut strawberries in half and arrange neatly in the baked flan case.
Mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla essence, double cream and yoghurt to form custard. Reduce the temperature in oven to 170c.
Pour the custard mix onto the strawberries in the flan case and bake for 25 minutes or until lightly brown and the custard has set.
Do not over bake it, you want it fairly soft.
Allow tart to cool and sprinkle with icing sugar and serve
Tips
You can use any summer fruit with this recipe but not frozen fruit as this will make the tart too soft.
I used a pre-baked tart case which cuts cooking time even further.
While you’re waiting for the tart to cook you can whip up the next recipe. A real winner with the littlies and a good one to get them involved with as it’s so so simple. I couldn’t convince Sam to help me today as he was exhausted after running around at his friend’s birthday party. I know he’ll enjoy eating it though!
The easiest strawberry ice-cream in the world, ever!
Makes 1 litre
Ingredients
1 x 400g punnet strawberries
1 x 250g tub mascarpone
1/2 x 397g can condensed milk
cones and sprinkles to serve
Method
Take the tops off the strawberries and wash the fruit. Tip into a flat bottomed dish and using a potato masher squash the fruit as much as you can.
Mash in the tub of mascarpone and then add the condensed milk and mix it all up. Don’t worry if the mixture is a bit streaky.
Pour the mixture into a metal or plastic box and put it in the freezer. Wait at least six hours before scooping into bowls or cones. Decorate with sprinkles or whatever you fancy!
Tips:
Good Food Magazine say you can also use ripe bananas, raspberries and peeled peaches and nectarines for this recipe. I added a punnet of blueberries with the strawberries. I also didn’t look at the recipe closely enough and added the entire tin of condensed milk instead of half – oops! We’ll see how it tastes once it’s ready…
Back to the tart… It’s cooled and dusted with icing sugar and sitting in the middle of the table.
This my friends, is called bargaining power.
The promise of a slice of this little beauty resulted in Sam eating the fishcakes he swore blind he was going to “throw in the recycling”.
Desserts – I love you!!!!!!
