Wimbledon Tart - Iconically British

I love this time of the year, Wimbledon is just a week away, today is the longest day of the year and the first official day of summer, this means that the British strawberries are at their juiciest and most flavorful. That can only mean one thing - it’s time for me to start baking my Wimbledon tart.

This is one of my favorite things to start the summer off with and you can not beat a slice of this with a glass of ice cold Pimms in the garden after a bbq on the last weekend in June whilst cheering on Andy Murray to a second victory on centre court (fingers crossed).

With crumbly shortcrust pastry tart filled with a thick light custard and topped with as many strawberries as you can squeeze on, this tart is a real crowd pleaser.

300g Shortcrust pastry

1 batch of pastry cream http://stiggyw.tumblr.com/post/137909837377/pastry-cream-a-pastry-chefs-best-kept-secret

500g strawberries

This tart does not take long to make if you organise yourself correctly.

Make the pastry cream the night before so that it is completely cooled and ready to use, then it is only a matter of making a tart case on the day and filling it.

Roll out your pastry and line a 10″ tart case making sure that you leave about 1 cm over the edge of the case to allow for shrinkage of the pastry when baked. Place a sheet of baking paper in the centre of pastry and place some baking beans on top. bake in the oven for 20-25 min on 160c until fully baked. Remove from the oven and take the beans out and allow to full cool.

Fill the tart case ¾ of the way to the top with the pastry cream then simply slice the strawberries and arrange them on top of the tart.

#strawberries #tart