On the Twelfth day of Christmas, my True Love baked for me…
Champagne Brulée Tart!!!!
(Candy Cane Truffle Cupcakes, Christmas Cracker Bonbons, Dutch Speculaas, Salmon Dill Layer Cake, Cranberry Danish, Raspberry Red Velvet Truffles, Chocolate Torrone, Gingerbread Snowflake Cookies, Christmas Mince Tarts, Saffron Almond Shortbread, White Christmas Cupcakes, and the Best Christmas Mince that you’ll see!)
During my work on the 12 Cakes of Christmas, I had a moment when I had four egg yolks with no home. I confess that this wasn’t actually caused by egg white demanding baking in those 12 cakes, it was actually caused by my trying to make a protein powder pancake that was nutritionalous and also edible. I had a modicum of success on that front (although pouring maple syrup over them was probably cheating), and 4 egg yolks.
What to do.
Well I’d tried a maple custard tart recipe over on Smitten Kitchen, and that had gone quite well, but having just fed one to the lawyering masses at work, I felt a bit weird about making another. On the other hand, egg yolks = custard.
Inspiration hit. Champagne custard, which I have made for the purposes of making Champagne ice cream, is seriously sensational, so it would be natural to put such custard into a tart!
Later, looking at the surface of the tart, I realised brulée had to happen. I was not wrong.
This insanely decadent dessert was obviously a dead-set starter for one of the 12 Cakes of Christmas, and even though it is not one of my “traditional” Christmas offerings, it is certainly going to be in the future! It would also make just the most fabulous New Years Eve dessert like EVER.
Champagne Brulée Tart
Crisp pastry
ingredients
125g Flour
50g icing sugar
50g unsalted butter
1 egg (not a jumbo one… It will make the mixture too wet!)
a little ice water, if needed
Champagne Custard (recipe below)
about 4 tbsp caster sugar, for the brulée
mixing
Combine the flour, icing sugar and butter in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and process until a smooth dough forms. Don’t worry if it seems soft, it will firm up in the fridge. Gather the dough into a ball, flatten, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Roll the chilled pastry out on a floured surface to the size of your tart tin. I used a 2 cm deep rectangular tart tin measuring 15cm x 25cm. You could also use a 20cm round tart tin.
Carefully roll the pastry loosely onto your rolling pin and transfer to the tart tin. Unroll, and press the pastry into the tin. Trim the top with a sharp knife. Cut a sheet of tin foil to the size of your tin and spray with non stick spray. Place the foil, greased side down over the pastry and press in. Fill the tin with pie weights.
Bake the pastry at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes (this is called blind baking). Remove the tin from the oven, carefully peel back the tin foil and lift it and the pie weights out. Return the pastry in its tin to the oven for a further 8 minutes or until the base is starting to colour.
Pour the custard into the hot pastry case. Reduce the ovens temperature to 150 degrees Celsius and bake the tart for about 20 minutes or until the centre of the tart is just set (if you jiggle the tin, the centre will still wobble). Turn off the oven, open the door a couple of inches and let the tart sit there for about half an hour before removing to cool on a wire rack. Once the tart is cold, chill the tray for at least an hour (don’t put straight in the fridge, this risks a film of moisture developing on the surface – bad for brûlée!)
To do the brûlée, scatter half the caster sugar evenly over the surface of the custard. Fire up your blowtorch, and carefully apply the flame to the sugary surface. This is a bit of an art, the sugar needs to bubble but you want to avoid burning (luckily the sugar takes quite a lot of heat to burn!). I find applying heat over the entire surface and then repeating the process works quite well. If you think you need deeper sugar (like I always do), scatter the rest of the sugar over and torch it again. Be careful with the tin, the edges will be very hot even if you took care with the torch not to burn the pastry!
You can also do the brûlée process under a very hot grill, with two extra things to note. First, you’ll need to carefully cover the edges of the pastry with a thin strip of tin foil, as unlike the blowtorch, the grills heat is indiscriminate! Second, you need to watch that sugar like a hawk!
Let the tart cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for an hour or more to ensure the custard will cut nicely. Be aware that once you have done the brûlée, the tart will be humidity sensitive, so aim to serve it as soon as it is cold.
When cutting the tart you need to crack the caramel, no mean feat! Give the surface a sharp tap with the knife just where you want to cut. This should help break the caramel.
Champagne Custard
ingredients
500mL cream
4 egg yolks
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
80mL champagne
mixing
Heat the cream until nearly boiling. Whisk the egg yolks, whole egg, sugar and salt together until creamy. Whisk in the cream in a thin stream. Return the mixture to the heat and cook for two minutes, stirring all the time. Cool, then stir in the champagne.
Enjoy!xxx
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