Mango Mood #6 - Mango Custard Tart

Tarts are one of the most beautiful looking ones among pastries. Love the versatility of this delicacy. You can make them sweet or savory, fruit or custard, chocolate or cinnamon!! Yummmm would be the only reaction for tarts :)

Mango custard tart that I made today was a super duper hit at home. It had a lovely flavor of mango with flaky and crispy base :) Totally melt in the mouth kind and I'm proudly raising my collars up today :)

I have or rather Chennai has been suffering from power cuts, low voltage and fluctuation issues for the past few days. These problems made me realize how inevitable electricity is :) Went crazy without cooking and blogging. Sigh!! Finally back with a post and hope you all enjoy the mango treat yet again :)

Ingredients:

Short crust pastry to make the tart shell
Custard
Mango
Cherries

For tart shell:

Cold Unsalted Butter - 75 gms
All purpose flour(Maida) - 300 gms (1 1/2 cups)
Powdered sugar - 45 gms (3 tbsp)
Salt - a pinch
Cold water - few spoons

For Custard:

Custard powder ( Mango flavor or vanilla flavor) - 4 tsp
Milk - 1 cup
Sugar - 1/3 cup

Method:

To make short crust pastry shell -

Sieve flour, powdered sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Chop chilled butter into small pieces and drop them into the flour mixture. Rub in the butter and flour with your fingers till it resembles fine crumbs. Now add just enough cold water to it and mix well till everything comes together into a fine dough. Do not kneed. Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for 30 mins.

Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface until it is 1/4 inch thick and slightly bigger than the size of your tart pan.

Line the base of the tart pan with the rolled pastry. Press the dough at the sides of the pan slowly and then run the rolling pin once on the pan to cut off the excess dough. Chill the lined pan for 15 mins or so to minimize shrinking before baking.

Prick holes on the tart base with a fork. Now place a butter paper or foil on the pastry and arrange metal pie weights or dried beans. I filled it with rice for my blind baking.

Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C and place the tart pans on the center rack and bake for 10 mins at 190°C. Remove the weights and bake for another 10-15 mins at 200°C or until golden.

Cool the shells completely on a wire rack.

To make custard -

Take few spoons of milk in a small bowl and dissolve the custard powder in it.

Boil the remaining milk along with sugar and once the sugar dissolves, reduce the flame and add the custard mixture. Keep stirring until it thickens slightly and remove from flame.

Allow it to cool for just few mins.

Assembling the tart -

Pour the custard into the tart shells.

Cut out strips of mango and arrange them neatly on the tarts. Place few fresh cherries on top for decoration :)

Mango custard tart is ready.

Chill and serve :)

This quantity was sufficient to make one large tart base of 6" diameter and 4 small tartlets.

Note:

Blind baking is to bake the tart shells separately. You can simply place some weights on the base before baking so that it does not raise.

Chill all the ingredients before using to get flaky and crispy tarts.

Tips:

Use fruits of your choice to make this tart interesting.

Replace the custard with melted chocolate to make chocolate tart.

Enjoy making tarts :) Have a happy weekend :)

Written by: Nithya
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