Rhubarb and Custard Tart with Sweet Almond Shortcrust Pastry

I have been coveting one of these lovely, delicate, oblong tart tins for a while now. As soon as my exams were over I took myself to Lakeland and bought one. I much prefer an oblong tart tin to a circular one, the finished dessert is much prettier and a little French looking - perfect.

Rhubarb is quickly becoming my favourite fruit. Once macerated to sweeten the rhubarb, the hint of tartness you still get is something I find wonderful, a refreshing break in an otherwise perfectly sweet tart.

I used Lily Vanilli's extra thick custard recipe with my own addition of almond essence which was really really beautiful. Last week I went to help my extremely foodie friend Lydia move out of her current apartment and took a slice of this Rhubarb and Custard Tart along. She sang its praises and to me this was a compliment of the highest order. I have tried much of her baking before (her carrot cake... omg) but this was the first thing I'd baked that she has tried. AND SHE LIKED IT YEY. If you read this Lydia, please start another food blog so my readers can see just how wonderful your food is.

For this tart I made sweet almond shortcrust pastry. Sometimes I find that sweet sweet pastry masks the flavours in the tart so this subtly sweet almond pastry worked really well with the rhubarb and custard filling, allowing the thick creamy custard and sweet, succulent rhubarb to sing their own praises.

It is difficult to tell you an exact weight of rhubarb as it completely depends how you want to cut your rhubarb. I cut mine into strips as wide as the tart tin, each about 1cm thick, however, next time I would make them thicker as silly me didn't think about them shrinking during maceration! DUH. Never mind, I know for next time!

I would usually remake the tart with the adjusted rhubarb and rephotograph but, and I am completely and utterly slightly blowing my own trumpet, I think this is the best thing I've ever baked so I couldn't wait any longer to share it with you, especially as I am away this weekend and oh it would just take SO long and that would be SO selfish of me. So here you are, here is the most perfect tart I have ever made for you to gobble up, rhubarb imperfections and all.

In other news, I am wanting to buy a domain in the near future and I am questioning my blog name. I have a few variations on hungry hippo that I could use or I want to change it completely to either Expecting Dessert or Vanilla Bean Fiend (have you seen how many of my recipes have vanilla bean paste listed in the ingredients?!). Anyway, there is a blog name battle going on in my head and who better to put an end to the battle than you guys. I'd LOVE to hear what you think, so please leave your preferred name in a comment below, or if by the time you read this I have set up a poll in a side bar on the blog please click your preferred name! Scrap all of that I've just figured out how to do it, please vote (you have 6 days, Blogger wouldn't let me give you longer) on the poll placed below the search box located at the top right of the page!

Back to the tart!

In a previous rhubarb-using post I was complimented for leaving my rhubarb natural and not dying it. In all honesty I didn't realise people actually did that?! Rhubarb is such a lovely colour naturally, why would you even feel the need to enhance it? I suppose it is essentially the food version of fake tanning. How ridiculous did that sound? As ridiculous as dying rhubarb! Having had my eyes opened to rhubarb reality I have since seen photos of so many artificially pink rhubarb containing baked goods and I now appreciate the comment and how refreshing it is to see non-dyed rhubarb, well ladies and gents I promise you here and now that never will you ever see a post on Hungry Hippo Baking Blog that involves dyed rhubarb. The biggest change I made to my au naturel rhubarb was to macerate it with half a vanilla bean and half a cap full of almond essence to add a hint of extra flavour.

My new friendship with rhubarb means rather than hiding it inside a delicious roasted rhubarb and oozy custard muffin, I want to show it off for all its glory in a baked good where it is the main visual feature. This tart allowed me to achieve that aim as the rhubarb stripes are striking and, deservedly, the main focus of the tart.

Ingredients

For the rhubarb:

300 g rhubarb approx.
80 g white granulated sugar
2 tbsp water
1/2 vanilla pod + scraped seeds
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

For the custard:

30 g granulated sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
3 medium egg yolks
260 ml double cream
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste (or the other half of the vanilla pod used for the rhubarb)
1/2 tsp almond essence

For the pastry:

225 g white all purpose flour
100 g butter, cubed
50 g ground almonds
50 g white granulated sugar
1 medium egg
2 - 3 tbsp cold water
1 tsp almond essence

Directions

The rhubarb:

1. 24 hours before you intend to bake, set up the rhubarb to macerate. Trim the rhubarb to fit width ways (the shorter side) in a 36 x 12 x 3cm loose based tart tin, accounting for a 1 cm thick layer of pastry, and then cut that into 4 if the stalk is chunky or 2 if the stalk is thinner, so you end up with 4 10 x 1 cm stalks per 10 cm cut of rhubarb. Lay the stalks on a baking tray.
2. In a medium saucepan, heat the sugar, water, almond essence and vanilla pod and scraped seeds until the mixture boils then let it simmer for 2 - 3 minutes until syrupy.
3. Pour the syrup over the rhubarb strips, cover with tin foil, leave to cool and refrigerate for 24 hours.

The custard:

1. Put the 3 egg yolks in a medium-large heatproof bowl add the sugar, vanilla bean paste (or 1 tsp vanilla extract), almond essence and cornflour. Whisk for 5 minutes until smooth, lighter and thicker, leave to stand for a minute and whisk for another 5 minutes.
2. Heat the cream in a saucepan until it boils. Pour this over the egg yolk mixture whisking as you pour.
3. Create a Bain-marie by heating a saucepan of water until it is gently boiling and putting the medium-large bowl containing the custard mixture on top of the pan, ensuring the boiling water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl. Whisk the custard until very thick and smooth - this will take about 10 minutes.
4. Put the custard in the fridge for at least 4 hours before you use it.

The sweet almond shortcrust pastry:

1. Add the flour and butter to a large mixing bowl and rub the butter into the flour with your fingers.
2. Mix in the sugar and ground almonds, again with your hands. In fact, put aside all utensils for this pastry - your best tools here are your finger tips!
3. Beat the egg in a small bowl and add it to the mixture along with the teaspoon of almond essence and cold water. Knead the dough into a ball with your hands.
4. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for about 2 hours.

To assemble:

1. Pre heat the oven to 170 degrees C and roll the dough out into a rectangle 3 inches bigger in all directions than the biggest face of the tart tin. Remember to flour your work area and flip the dough over after every few rolls.
2. Press it into the tart tin and trim off the excess (the obvious thing to use here is a knife, but use scissors, trust me it's SO much easier!).
3. Blind bake for 20 minutes with greaseproof paper covering it weighed down with pie beads or dried beans. Remove the beans and greaseproof paper and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes until the edges are golden brown. If the rhubarb feels a little too hard to the touch put the baking tray with the rhubarb in the oven too for the last 10 minutes then leave the pastry and the rhubarb to cool.
4. Once the pastry has cooled, remove the custard from the fridge and spoon it all into the tart case, smoothing it over with a spatula.
5. Line the strips of cooled rhubarb up like rungs of a ladder with gaps only big enough for a person with 2 - 3 mm thick feet.
6. Photograph because it will undoubtedly look b-e-a-uuuuuutiful then serve, share, eat and ENJOY :)