Rhubarb and Custard Tart

  

Well, it's that time of year again when all the weird and wonderful fruit and veg that my dad has decided to grow in our garden is ready to pick and we are suddenly faced with a glut of something peculiar that needs using immediately! But to be honest, rhubarb isn't that weird and in fact, I quite enjoy the challenge of coming up with a new recipe to go with whatever's in season. Actually, I've decided that I quite like rhubarb too. Put it with some ginger and something sweet and I enjoy its kick of sourness. When I spotted a recipe for rhubarb and custard tart it leapt out at me, because as I've said countless times before, anything with custard in is a winner for me!! 

This summery tart was certainly no exception. The rhubarb still had a bit of bite to it, the custard was the perfect amount of vanilla-y-ness and the pastry was flaky and crisp (Mary Berry would have been proud of it!). I was actually planning on being lazy and buying ready-made pastry, but if you make your own it always tastes better (even if it is a bit of a faff to make), which was definitely true for this recipe! Anyway, the rest of the tart was very easy to make, because despite it having custard in, you don't actually have to make it in a saucepan before hand, which is a bit of a relief, because there's always a risk it might curdle... Thankfully, this is avoided putting it in the oven and it came out looking pretty perfect and tasted pretty perfect too! I guess you could have it with cream or ice cream, but I prefer it just as it is, either as a pick-me-up mid-afternoon with a cup of tea or as a dessert. Next year I will not need to search hard for a recipe with rhubarb, because I will absolutely be making this one again!!  

Rhubarb and Custard Tart

Ingredients

Pastry:

280g Plain Flour

60g Custard Powder

200g Butter

4tbsp Caster Sugar

2 large Egg Yolks

Filling:

350g Rhubarb

1/2tsp Ground Ginger

100g Golden Caster Sugar

1 Large Egg and 1 Egg Yolk

1tsp Vanilla Extract

1tbsp Plain Flour

284ml Single Cream 

Method

1. For the pastry place the flour, custard powder and a pinch of salt in a large bowl followed by the cubed butter.
2. Rub together until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Stir in the sugar.
4. Add the egg yolks and 3-4tbsp of water and quickly mix together.
5. Shape into a ball, cover in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
6. Cut the rhubarb into bite-sized pieces and place in a frying pan with the ginger and half the sugar.
7. Warm through just until the sugar dissolves.
8. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
9. Roll out the pastry and line a 24cm tin with it.
10. Line with greaseproof paper and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes, removing the beans for the final 5.
11. Beat together the egg and egg yolk, vanilla extract, remaining sugar and the flour. 
12. Gradually whisk in the cream and any juice from the rhubarb.
13. Spoon the rhubarb into the prepared pastry case and pour over the cream mixture.
14. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until the custard is very lightly set.
15. Remove from the oven, serve warm or at room temperature and enjoy!