This Maple Cream Tarte was born after I made Maple Cream Tartlets and nobody could stop at 1 or 2 tarts!
This filling is not cloyingly sweet like so many maple flavoured recipes can be. So it is perfect for a slice of tarte.
Take your pick which format works best for your purposes.
The tartlets are easy to serve and don’t need plates and forks. So there is that…
And the tarte serving works well at a table setting.
Blind Baking Your Crust
You may be interested to note that for this recipe I tried a supposedly foolproof method for blind baking a crust. The standard has been to prick the pastry dough evenly with a fork, weighting the crust down with pie weight over a layer of foil.
The traditional way works but I have had bubbles in my pastry despite the fork pricks and the weights. Then I came across a suggestion to cook the pastry lower and slower. Fork pricks are not necessary and you are immune to pastry bubbles.
The method suggested rolling out your dough a little larger than normal (to account for shrinkage), freeze it for 30 minutes and then cover your pie plate or tarte pan completely with foil (so you don’t get overly dark edges). You can use dried beans for pie weights or even a cup or two of sugar. You can cool and reuse the dried beans a few times and you can use the sugar in future baking or for where ever you use sugar. The sugar takes on a slightly darker hue but it is just evidence of a bit of caramelization. No waste!
Sugar is also good for a very even distribution of weight on your pastry crust.
Then you bake it at 350 degrees for one hour. I was very pleased with how my crust turned out. No bubbles whatsoever; nice colour and perfect texture.
So… there you go… maybe you learned something today!
Ingredients
Tartlets
- 1 Food Processor Pie Crust You will have some pie dough left over for another use.
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup maple syrup Grade B is fine
- 2 medium egg yolks
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 Tbsps corn starch
Whipped Cream Topping
- 2 cupS whipping cream
- 2 Tbsps maple syrup
Instructions
- Roll out pastry thinly to generously fit a 10" round tarte pan. Freeze for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350°. Cover crust completely with foil. Fill foil with pie weights. Bake covered for 1 hour. When done remove foil and pie weights and allow shell to cool.
- While crust is cooling whisk the milk, syrup and yolks in a food processor till well blended.
- Whisk flour and cornstarch in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk one cup of the milk mixture into the dry ingredients.
- Add the flour/milk mixture back into the food processor and whisk to blend thoroughly.
- Transfer mixture to a large saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until the custard starts to thicken and boils. This may take 8 minutes or more depending on the size of your saucepan etc. Mixture should look like soft pudding when you remove it from the heat.
- Spoon custard into the cooled tarte shell. Refrigerate until chilled. (You can do this a day ahead but ensure tit is tightly covered.)
- Whip cream and maple syrup until it holds stiff peaks. Spoon or pipe around outer edge of the tarte. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve and additional dollop of cream on the side of each piece.
