These tarts have a sweet shortcrust pastry, a hidden layer of homemade strawberry and champagne jam and are topped with a delicious white chocolate crème mousseline.
Strawberry and Champagne Jam
- 250g strawberries
- 250g jam sugar
- 150ml champagne
Roughly chop the strawberries and pop into a heavy-based saucepan. Pour over the champagne and gently simmer for a few minutes. Add the sugar, stir and then bring to a boil. The jam needs to get to approx 105°C. Once the jam gets to the correct temperature, take a teaspoon of the jam and place on a chilled plate. If after a couple of minutes the jam wrinkles when pushed back, it is ready. If not, heat for a couple more minutes and check again. Once the jam is ready, pour into sterilised jam jars. This quantity filled about 1 and a half jam jars, but you can easily scale the ingredients up if you like. Leave to chill in the fridge.
For the Shortcrust Pastry
Click here for my post on making a sweet shortcrust pastry. Make one portion of pastry as per the instructions. Chill the pastry, wrapped in cling film, for at least one hour. Once the pastry has chilled, dust your work surface with flour and roll out the pastry to about the thickness of a pound coin. I used five pastry rings with a diameter of about 5 inches, greased with unsalted butter. Prepare a baking sheet with baking paper. Cut out circles of pastry and place in the rings, directly onto the baking paper. Press the pastry firmly against the rings, then use a sharp knife to cut excess pastry off the top. Repeat with the remaining 4 rings and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 mins, but longer if possible. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Once the pastry is chilled, prick the bases with a fork, line with baking paper and baking beans and bake for about 12 mins. Remove the beans and the paper, then bake for about 4-6 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden. Remove the rings and leave to cool.
For the White Chocolate Mousseline
- 500ml whole milk
- 4 egg yolks
- 135g caster sugar
- 50g cornflour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 250g good quality white chocolate, melted
- 250g unsalted butter at room temperature
Heat the milk gently in a saucepan. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, then whisk in the cornflour. Once the milk is simmering, pour a small amount into the egg mixture and whisk together, then pour the entire contents into the saucepan and turn up the heat. Whisk continuously until the mixture is thick. Pour into a clean bowl and whisk in the vanilla and white chocolate until smooth. Cover with cling film (the film needs to be touching the pastry cream) and chill in the fridge.
Once the cream is cooled, pop the butter (at room temperature) in an electric mixer and whisk until it is smooth and creamy. Keep whisking the butter and add the pastry cream a little at a time until fully incorporated. The mixture may look a little curdled but keep whisking and it will become smooth.
To assemble the tarts, take your cooled pastry tarts and spoon a couple of tablespoons of the strawberry and champagne jam onto the base and smooth to create a layer. Now carefully spoon the white chocolate mousseline onto the jam and smooth over with a palette knife. To decorate, I piped some of the remaining mousseline around the edge and decorated with strawberries.
