Almond shortbread
- Place the flour, almond powder, powdered sugar and cold butter in the bowl of your food processor. Blend at low speed until it resembles coarse sand.
- Add the yellow-water mixture all at once and mix just until the dough comes together. We don’t want to overwork the dough, as this would activate the gluten in the flour, which would give the dough body
- Shape the dough into a disk, wrap well and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
- Once the dough has cooled, roll it out on your work surface to a thickness of 0.3 mm, then line your tart tin (that is, line it with your shortbread dough, making sure to fit the bottom and edges). Block the pastry in the freezer for 30 minutes, then bake for around 20 minutes at 165°C fan oven (or until the pastry is evenly golden-brown) to cook the pastry until white. This will enable us to top it with pastry cream later.
Vanilla pastry cream
- To make the crème pâtissière, start by heating the milk with the vanilla pod scraped out.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix the egg yolks with the sugar, then add the cream powder (or cornflour). Set aside. - Once the milk has been infused with vanilla, remove the vanilla pod, then pour the milk over the yolk + sugar + cream powder mixture, stirring all the while (this is very important, otherwise you’ll cook your eggs and the recipe will be a failure).
- Return everything to the pan and bring to the boil, whisking constantly. Once boiling, keep boiling for at least 1 minute 30 seconds, then transfer to a clean dish, cover with cling film (i.e. the cling film directly over the custard) and chill in the fridge.
- This cream will keep for 48 hours in the fridge, after which you can put it in a dish and bake it at 180°C to make a flan without pastry and avoid throwing it away.
Assembly
- Once the crème pâtissière has cooled, place in a bowl and whisk lightly to soften.
- Fill the tart base with the custard, then arrange the strawberry halves harmoniously on top.
- If desired, coat the tart with a topping or a little apricot jam with a little water, then sprinkle with chopped pistachios.
- Refrigerate until ready to eat.
