Custard Tart

Hmmm.... Not the best birthday cake ever made, but hopefully she won't remember! Nigella says this is tricky and it is. The problem is making sure that the pastry base is completely water-tight so that when you add the custard mixture, it doesn't all leak out. I lost about half of my custard this way.

Nigella also cooks her pastry far too hot, so that the sides burn before the base is done. She says she covers the sides top prevent them burning, but i'm not convinced. When i tried this on the second bake, all that happened was that the tin foil stuck to the pastry, hence the uneven pastry sides.

The leaking was however, all my own fault. A few tears appeared when moving from worktop to flan case, and i thought i'd patched them up with pastry, but not good enough it seems. Basically your rolled out pastry needs to be perfect and you need to move it perfectly into the flan tin. Sealing the pastry with the egg white just isn't enough.

- Bake the pastry blind for 20 mins at 200C (using pastry beans on top to weigh it down)

- Beat an egg white and brush this onto the pastry base and cook it again (without the beans) for a further 5 mins.

- Lightly whisk together 3 eggs, 1 egg yolk, and 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar (or plain sugar with a drop of vanilla essence).

- Warm 300ml single cream and 150ml milk in a saucepan with a pince of ground mace.

- Add the egg/sugar mixture, stir and strain into the pastry case, (the pastry case on a pulled out oven shelf so It it doesn't spill when putting in the oven).

- Grate over some nutmeg and cook at 160c for 35-45 mins.

It tasted pretty good. The pastry was delicious (where it wasn't burnt!) but i was disappointed with the custard. It tasted a bit bland to me, although Tara seemed to think this was classic english custard. I prefer the sweeter, richer Portuguese style of custard. Maybe a touch more sugar next time.