Whittlebury Park’s Head Pastry Chef, Ben Clark is this month sharing a recipe using seasonal raspberries combined with a rich crème patisserie filling.

Ingredients

Crème patisserie:
300ml whole milk
3 large egg yolks
120g sugar
17.5g plain flour
2 drops vanilla essence

Sweet Pastry:

500g plain flour

250g butter

200g icing sugar

1 whole egg

2 large egg yolks

Method

For the crème patisserie separate egg yolks from whites, then place the milk and vanilla essence into a pan and bring to the boil.
Put the yolks into a bowl and mix with sugar and flour. Pour milk over the egg yolk mixture and combine. Transferback in to the pan and keep cooking until the mixture is a thick custard consistency.Chill and save for later.

For the sweet pastry, mix flour, icing sugar and butter until incorporated, add the eggs and mix until dough has started to form.Take out of the bowl and knead until a smooth dough is formed.Chill in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Using four 8cm tart rings, roll out the pastry thinly, and tease into the tart ring.Repeat until all four 8cm tart ringshave been lined.Using cling film, double line and make a little bigger than the tart and place into it either baking beans or rice.

Bake In the oven at 320F / 160C / Gas 3 for 12-15 minutes. Once baked remove rice or baking beans and bake the Inside until fully cooked.After removing from the oven, leave to cool.

Using a piping bag, pipe the crème patisserie into the cooled tart shells and flatten off with a pallet knife.Finish by decorating with the fresh raspberries.

*You can always use frozen raspberries as an alternative to fresh for extra convenience, and serve with a scoop of sorbet, Chantilly cream or clotted cream ice cream.