Fresh Lime Custard Berry Tart

This was a little complicated.

Ingredients

• Crust
  
  
  • 1 stick butter
    
  • 2tbsp neutral oil
    
  • 1.75c flour
    
  • 0.25c sugar
    
  • generous pinch of salt
    
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 2-3tbsp milk
    
• Filling
  
  
  • 1/3c sugar
    
  • 2tbsp corn starch
    
  • 1c milk
    
  • 2tbsp butter
    
  • zest of one lime
    
  • juice of half a lime
  • 3 egg yolks
  • berries - I used about 2/3 a pint of blueberries, 6oz of blackberries, and about 8 strawberries
    
• Glaze
  
  
  • Juice of two limes
    
  • 2tbsp jam - I used guava
    
  • Honey to taste
    
  • 2tsp corn starch
    

First the dough. Whisk together the dry ingredients. Then chop the butter up into small pieces and cut it into the flour. Next time I'm using the cuisinart like I usually do for making a pastry dough. Whatever. Then add the milk and combine, being careful not to overwork the dough or heat it too much with your hands. When it JUST sticks together (it will have the consistency of wet sand), wrap it in plastic wrap and form into a disk. Stick it in the fridge for 4 hours to chill.



When that's done, take it out and, on a well floured surface, roll it out. Fit it into a springform pan or tart pan, if you have one (I didn't). I lined my springform with a little waxed paper. Make sure the dough goes up the side a little bit. I had to actually press it into the pan with a well-floured drinking glass. It works. Anyway, put some more waxed paper or parchment paper in the middle and weight down with dry peas (classic) or the change from your change jar (my way), being careful that it doesn't actually touch the dough. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, remove currency, and bake for another 15 minutes. This is called "blind baking". I'm just saying.



Now the filling. Set the crust aside to cool. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, lime zest, and corn starch, whisking thoroughly. In a sauce pan, bring the milk to a simmer. When it's simmering, take it off the heat and (TEMPERING FIRST), whisk into the egg/sugar mixture. Tempering means you add just a LITTLE, stir it together, add a little more, whisk thoroughly, and then add the rest. This is so it doesn't scramble the eggs.



Now return the mixture to the sauce pan and set over low heat, whisking constantly. In about a minute, the mixture will seize up (it's really sudden) probably because of the corn starch. Ok. Take it off the heat and stir a little more, then add the butter and stir until it's melted. Now pour it into the cooled crust. Dot with the berries. Actually mine had ridiculous piles of berries. Anyway, try to arrange them radially. It looks nicer. People will appreciate that.



FINALLY, the glaze. Juice those limes you used - mine were the driest limes I've ever used, so I needed two of them, but you could conceivably use one. Mix in the jam and whisk thoroughly. Then add honey until the sweetness is well balanced. Add the corn starch and whisk together, then pour it into a sauce pan and cook over low heat until it thickens. Take it off the heat and spoon it liberally over the tart. Cover the tart and fridge it until completely cooled - at least four hours, though I just made mine like two days ahead of time, so that's possibly a better option.



Thoughts: difficult to make alone. Especially in the B-more heat and humidity. I've NEVER had that much difficulty with pastry dough. It was ridiculous. I think that if I had a tart pan, that would have simplified things a LITTLE, though also the pastry dough recipe is not my usual pastry dough recipe OR method, so next time I'll try my usual and see how that works out. There were confounding factors here, is what I guess I'm saying. Berries were super cheap at Giant Foods this week, so that is the origin of that. By the time I got to the glaze, I had no sauce pans left so I actually microwaved it for 30 seconds at time (stirring in between) until it thickened. It got a little weird - corn starch does that - but it thickened well and the whole thing was pretty amazing.



Disaster Index: 1/10