Market Tart

Me too, Brutus! I can’t help it. Like the rest of the food loving world, I am obsessed with elderflowers - the tiny, creamy white flowers that taste and smell like a heady mixture of lychees, raspberries, citrus fruits, grass and honeyed apricots.

I have made litres of the obligatory elderflower cordial, elderflower sugar and elderflower infused brandy - and currently there is an elderflower & olive oil ice cream base resting in my refrigerator. The olive oil and elderflower combo had me weak in the knees, it is SO GOOD! I just had to make something else, something more. Olive oil and elderflower panna cotta? Olive oil and elderflower pound cake? Olive oil and elderflower buttercream a la Rose Wilde? I want to make it all.

In the end I went with what I know and love the most - a simple fruit tart with all the juiciest fruits and berries I could find at the market. Strawberries, raspberries and apricots! But really, most fruit would work. Poached pear and lychee is in the near future, I think.

If you can’t get your hands on fresh elderflower, substitute for chamomile, lemon verbena, rose geranium, basil, anise hyssop or any other flower or herb you love!

Market Tart

Makes 1 20cm tart

Lemon shortcrust

175g butter
100g sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
300g flour
25g almond flour
1/2 tsp. salt
Zest of 1/2 lemon

Elderflower olive oil pastry cream

500ml whole milk
20g elderflowers (or chamomile, lemon verbena, basil leaves, rose geranium, cherry blossoms, blackcurrant leaves…)
100g sugar
35g cornstarch
4 egg yolks
30g fruity olive oil
Pinch of salt 

Fresh fruit! Raspberries, strawberries, apricots, blueberries, peaches, mangoes, lychees, pears - whatever your heart desires!

For the tart shell: Cream together butter, sugar and lemon zest until very light and pale. Beat in the egg and the yolk, then mix in the flour and salt in 3 batches. Gather into two balls, press flat and wrap in clingfilm. Refrigerate for at least a few hours or freeze for up to 3 months, until needed.

Roll out to 2-3mm thickness and line a 23cm tart ring with the dough, trim and freeze for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 175C. Cover the tart shell with tin foil and fill to the brim with caster sugar. Blind bake for 15 minutes, remove the tinfoil and bake the tart for another 5-10 minutes until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.

For the pastry cream: Rub 20g of the sugar with the elderflowers, add to a pot with the whole milk and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and cover with clingfilm. Infuse the elderflower in the milk for 30 minutes in an ice bath - or in the freezer, if you have space. (A major thank you to Kitty Travers for this technique)

Heat the elderflower infused milk until simmering and steaming hot. Whisk the egg yolks with remaining 80g of sugar and corn starch before tempering the yolks by pouring roughly 1/3 of the hot milk over the yolks while whisking. Return the yolks to the hot milk and cook over medium heat, while stirring, until it thickens.

Once the pastry cream thickens and starts to bubble, whisk continuously for 1 minute. Remove from heat and whisk in the olive oil and a pinch of salt. Pass through a chinois or fine meshed sieve into a clean container, cover with a piece of clingfilm directly against the surface and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Whisk the pastry cream until smooth and fill the tart shell almost to the edge with pastry cream. Garnish with seasonal fresh fruit and serve!