Strawberry tart

My second bake of the year, yes, only the second one surprisingly. So, after almost 2 months with no baking, I decided to make something simple just to make sure I can still bake. I was originally going to make a rhubarb and strawberry tart, but I couldn't get hold of any rhubarb. 

Ingredients (for 9 inch tart tin)

• 80g + 40g unsalted butter (separate)
• 30g icing sugar
• 190g + 15g plain flour (separate)
• 25g + 50g corn flour (separate)
• 750g strawberries
• 130g + 50g caster sugar (separate)
• 500ml milk (semi-skimmed or full fat)
• 5 large eggs

1. Cut butter and sift icing sugar, 190g plain flour together and rub with finger tips until it resembles breadcrumb (or pulse with mixer)
2. Add 1 whole egg and 1 tbsp of cold water and combine by hand until it forms a smooth dough, at this stage, it should not stick to your hands 
3. Roll out pastry dough to 2-3mm thick and place inside tart tin, softly press dough against the sides and leave the extras from the sides for now
4. Prick the base of pastry evenly with a fork and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C (170 fan)
5. Place a piece of parchment paper on the pastry and line with baking beans to prevent pastry from rising and allow an even bake of the base
6. Blind bake for 10 minutes, take it out of the oven and trim off the excess from the sides with a sharp knife, careful as the pastry is very delicate at this stage
7. Blind bake for another 5 minutes, the base should be dry at this stage, if not, return to oven for another 2 minutes and keep going until the pastry base is dry beneath the baking beans
8. Remove baking beans and parchment paper and bake for another 5 minutes, or until the base is golden
9. Beat 1 egg in a bowl
10. Remove pastry from oven and lightly brush the beaten egg onto the base and sides of pastry case
11. Return to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes, or until the pastry case is golden in colour
12. Take pastry out of oven and let it cool to room temperature
13. To make strawberry sauce, wash and quarter 250g of strawberries (if you want strawberry and rhubarb, replace 100g strawberry with chopped rhubarb)
14. Place strawberries in saucepan with 50g caster sugar and 3 tbsp water over medium heat until it simmers
15. Take a small amount of the strawberry juice out of saucepan and beat in the corn flour until it is smooth and thick
16. Add a bit more strawberry juice to the thickened paste until it becomes running
17. Return all of the juice and cornflour to the saucepan, heat and beat until it is thick
18. Put in strawberry sauce in a clean bowl to cool down
19. You should have some beaten egg left, add 3 egg yolks, 130g sugar and 50g corn flour to the eggs and mix until thick
20. Heat milk until simmering and add gradually the milk to the egg mix and keep whisking at the same time until half of the milk has been added
21. Transfer the runny custard to the remaining milk back in the saucepan and put it over low-medium heat, continue whisking the whole time 
22. Continue heating until the custard simmers and starts to thicken, it should still be runny, but should be thicker than double cream consistency
23. Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract to the custard and stir it in
24. Continue beating until the custard is very thick
25. Take pastry cream off the heat and add 40g unsalted butter, stir it in until it has completed melted 
26. Cool custard to room temperature
27. Spread the thickened sauce evenly to the bottom of the pastry base and set in fridge for 1-2 hours
28. Pipe the pastry cream on top of strawberry sauce and layer chopped strawberries on top however you like
29. Brush leftover strawberry jam on top of the strawberries for glazing

La Burdick, Boston, MA, USA

This place is a chocolatier specialist, so as expected, their main products are pre-packaged chocolates of various flavours. However, they do have a good variety of chocolate desserts too. I didn't purchase any chocolates as that wasn't the reason of my visit.

Linzer torte

Let's start with the linzer torte, visually, it looked very appetising with all those roasted nuts and a good layer of raspberry in the middle. It was packed with almond flavour, but the hazelnut didn't come through strongly, in fact, you really had to search for the hazelnut flavour. The nuts on top were well roasted and crisp. However, the linzertorte for me would have to be more delicate and crumbly. This particular one was quite solid and the mixture may have been overworked, giving it more of a chewy and hard texture. The flavour was absolutely fine. 

The Burdick

The cake was quite solid, and was not as moist and soft as I had expected. The rum flavour came through nicely and complemented the flavour well. The design was simple and effective. The structure was held very well for ALL of the cakes there and they all looked very attractive. However, I suspect the structure of all the cakes were so sturdy because the cake itself was harder and less likely to collapse . I'm definitely someone who would go for taste before appearance. Though, saying that, the cake was good, but is it good enough to inherit the name of the shop? Personally, I don't think it is.

Mocha cake

Very similar to the burdick in terms of structure and texture. The sponge had a very close texture, but because of the fact each layer is sliced so thin, you may not notice, especially if you had a soft layer of cream/mousse in between the layers. The major problem of this cake is the stiff coffee cream. It was too hard, perhaps beaten too much. A good soft cream would hide the downfall of the sponge, but this cream couldn't do that because it was very hard itself. Despite saying that, the aroma and taste from the coffee was very good and it was lovely. If the texture itself can be improved slightly, this will be a very good cake.

Lemon and chocolate cake

I've said it before and I will say it again, lemon and chocolate go very nicely together and this cake was a delight, flavour wise. Texture on the other hand, suffered the same problems as the ones I mentioned above. The lemon cream here is softer and did in fact mask the downfall of the cake somewhat. This is definitely worth trying and I did feel I wanted more after finishing it.

Overall impression: 6/10
The burdick: 6/10
mocha cake: 6.5/10
chocolate lemon cake: 7/10
Linzertorte: 5.5/10