Crumbly shortcrust pastry, vanilla pastry cream, strawberry jelly, and fragrant fresh strawberries! Strawberry season is in full swing, so I'm rushing to share a new delicious recipe using them. I based it on the dough and cream from the Tart with Pastry Cream and Raspberries, but made them as individual tartlets. I ended up with 16 tartlets, 7 cm in diameter. I can tell you right away that my taste testers and I polished them all off in just half a day — they were absolutely delicious! By the way, I put together a collection of strawberry recipes so everything is in one place — there's a link to it on the site's home page. Let's kick off summer with as many strawberries as possible!
Ingredients:
- Dough:
- 250 g flour
- 120 g butter
- 60 g powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- Vanilla Cream:
- 400 ml milk
- 100 g sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 25 g flour
- 25 g starch
- 10 g vanilla sugar
- 50 g butter
- Strawberry Jelly:
- 250 g strawberries
- 1-2 tbsp sugar
- 5 g gelatin
- For Decoration:
- 500 g strawberries (approximately)
How to cook strawberry tartlets
Bring the dough together by hand into a ball — don't overwork it, just do the minimum needed to bring it together.
Divide the dough among the tartlet molds. As a reminder, I got 16 tartlets at 7 cm in diameter, but it all depends on the size of your molds. Press the dough evenly and form the sides. Prick the bottoms with a fork.
Option one: line each mold with a square of parchment paper and fill with pie weights, such as dried beans. This keeps the sides from sliding down during baking. Afterwards, store the beans in a separate jar for next time. Option two, which I use more often: simply freeze the dough-lined molds. Place them in the freezer for 20–25 minutes, then transfer directly to a preheated oven. This helps the dough hold its shape without spreading. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C (400°F) for 10–20 minutes. If the edges start to brown before the dough is fully baked through, cover the tops with foil. Let the finished tartlet shells cool completely.
Make the cream. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla sugar, flour, starch, and about a quarter of the milk until smooth.
Pour the remaining milk into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat until hot. Add the egg yolk mixture and stir well.
Remove from heat, add the butter, and stir well until the butter melts and is fully incorporated into the cream. Let the finished cream cool completely.
Strain through a fine-mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Bloom the gelatin in 2–3 tbsp of water and let it sit for 10 minutes, or for the time indicated on the package. Heat until the gelatin dissolves, then let it cool. Stir it into the strawberry mixture. Refrigerate until the mixture is slightly thickened but still pourable.
Trim the bottoms of each strawberry slightly, cut them in half, and arrange them cut-side down on the cream — I fit 5 halves on each tartlet.
Refrigerate until the strawberry jelly sets — it will hold the strawberries in place. They come out looking beautiful!
Cross-section view. I took the cross-section photo almost immediately after assembling them — I had to act fast before they all disappeared! — but as you can see, the cream was already holding its shape nicely. That said, if you let them sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, they'll be even better.
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