Snowflake Tart

I'm back!  We celebrated Christmas with Hubby's family at Sis in Law's place in Bathgate this year.  Bro in Law even managed to make it up from London, although Heathrow did its best the throw a spanner in the works, he at least managed to get a flight unlike so many others.  Poor people, such a rotten time of year to be stuck at an airport! 

This year I was in charge of dessert for the big day.  Bro in Law is a huge fan of pavs and had asked for one months before Christmas so for him I made Mum's Pav smothered in freshly whipped cream and thoroughly doused in the contents of about 6 passionfruit Nigella style!

I also made this White Chocolate Tart.  I had attempted to be artistic and make it look like a snowflake using a holly leaf cutter and some white chocolate modelling paste.  If you look at it from a distance and screw your eyes up a wee but you can kind of see the effect!  It tasted pretty good though.  And it keeps well which is a bonus seeing as we didn't really get to the desserts or sweet treats until Boxing Day, we had a late lunch on Christmas Day and nobody could fit another ounce of food in after that!

White Chocolate Tart
Pastry
225g plain flour
100g butter
25g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp cold water
Custard
3 eggs
300ml double cream
50g caster sugar
150g white chocolate
1 x 250g tub mascarpone cheese
Icing sugar to serve

You will need to 28cm loose bottomed flan tin. Preheat the oven to 200C/ fan 180C. To make the pastry, whizz the flour and butter in a processor until it becomes breadcrumbs. Add sugar, egg yolk and water and whizz again until combined into a ball.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work surface to about 5cm bigger than the tart tin. Line the tin, trim the edge and prick the base with a fork. Set aside to rest in the fridge.

Break the chocolate into a bowl and melt gently over a bowl of barely simmering water, stir occasionally until melted. Measure the eggs, cream and sugar into a bowl and whisk together until blended. Whisk in the melted chocolate and mascarpone until smooth with no lumps.

Line the pastry tin with baking paper and baking beans. Cook in preheated oven for about 10 mins. Remove the beans and paper and return the pastry shell to the oven at the same temp for a further 5 mins or until the pastry shell has dried out.

Pour the custard into the tart tin. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C/fan 160C fro about 20 mins until the filling is set. Once cooked set aside to cool, remove from the tin, dust with icing sugar and serve cold.

Serves 8
Country Kitchen, March 08

• Tart can be made up to 2 days ahead and kept in the fridge. Freezes well cooked.

I didn't use the pastry recipe above, as I already had a healthy amount of sweet shortcrust resting in the fridge for some mince pies so I used some of that instead.  Once it was 'decorated' I sprinkled some little gold stars over and to serve with both the pav and the tart I made some Vanilla and Raspberry Sauce.  The tart really benefited from another flavour to help cut through the richness of that chocolate custard ... and Bro in Law even introduced me to the perks of some leftover sauce on toast!!!