To celebrate my brilliant, clever honey bees doing so well this year I have made these honey sweetened Elderflower Fruit Tarts. They had a pretty tough start to the year, my poor girls! A storm blew the roof off two of the hives earlier in the year and by the time I got to them, they were pretty wet and sorry looking.
Bees hate the cold and damp so I wasn’t too hopeful that they would survive the winter. When I was able to open the hives up for the first time in April they were doing much better than I had expected but were battling with a small number of very persistent ants. I hate ants! A strong hive full of bees can generally fight off ants but a weaker hive can struggle to defend their home, so I was really worried for them. A quick search of google, threw up some interesting suggestions on how to manage ants in bee hives. All three hives are now sporting oil moats, have hive legs that are smothered with petroleum jelly and are liberally sprinkled with ground cinnamon. It seems to have done the trick and we are now ant free!
Anyhow, back to these fab refined sugar free elderflower fruit tarts! The creme patissiere that fills the tarts is delicately flavored with sugar free elderflower syrup and is sweetened using honey. I used a very light honey so as not to overpower the elderflower flavor but of course you don’t need to flavor the tarts at all, You could even just use a stronger flavored honey if you want a honey creme patissiere. I used a combination of raspberries and apricots to decorate these tarts – you can use any fruits you want but I’d suggest that if you are using softer fruits that you leave decorating them until the last minute or you may find that they start to bleed. Glaze with a mix of honey and a little water and you have a very sophisticated looking fruit tart!
Elderflower Fruit Tarts
- Total Time: 2h
- Yield: 6 - 8 tartlets
- Category: Honey Sweetened, Refined Sugar Free
Ingredients
Creme Patissiere
- 3 Large Egg Yolks
- 2 1/2 tablespoons Honey
- 20 grams Corn Starch (Corn flour)
- 250 millilitres Whole Milk
- 1 teaspoon Sugar Free Elderflower Cordial
- 1 tablespoon Butter
Shortcrust Pastry
- 250 grams plain flour
- 125 grams cold butter (diced)
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 pinch salt
Topping
- 2 Punnets of rasperries
- 2 teaspoons Honey
- 1 teaspoon Water
Instructions
To make the Creme Patissiere
- Separate the eggs. Place the egg whites to one side - you can use them to make cocoa swirl meringues later!
- Place the egg yolks into a heavy based saucepan and stir in the honey, cornstarch and salt until well blended.
- Pour the milk into a heavy based saucepan and on a medium heat stir until the milk comes to the boil. Take the milk off the heat and carefully pour a small amount of it into the egg mixture whisking whilst you do so. Slowly pour the remainder of the hot milk into the egg mixture making sure that you whisk all of the time.
- Place the saucepan on a medium heat and bring to the boil, whilst whisking constantly. Make sure that get into the edges of the saucepan so that it does not catch. Allow the creme patisserie to boil for 1 or 2 minutes or until it thickens. It should coat the back of a spoon.
- Take the creme patisserie off the heat and leave to stand for 4 or 5 minutes. If there are lumps in your creme patisserie you can pass it through a fine mesh at this point. Stir in the elderflower cordial and the butter.
- Pour the creme patissiere into a bowl and place a piece of parchment paper on the top to stop a skin from forming. Set aside and leave to cool.
To make the Shortcrust Pastry
- Preheat you oven to 350f / 180c / 160c fan assisted
- Place the flour in a large bowl and rub in the cold, diced butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. This can also be done in a food processor if you prefer.
- Add the egg yolks and a pinch of salt to the mixture and combine using a spoon.
- Using your hands squash the pastry into a ball. If it is too dry you can add a little milk. You want the pastry to hold together but not to be too wet! Rest the pastry in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Remove the pastry from the fridge and leave it to warm up a bit.
- Roll out the pastry on to a floured surface. Line your tart tins and prick the base with a fork. Cover the pastry with rounds of parchment paper and cover with baking beans (If you do not have baking beans you could use rice or dried beans or lentils etc - just something that weighs the pastry down). Bake for 12 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and remove the beans and paper. Put the pastry cases back into the oven for a further 12 minutes until the pastry is golden.
- Once cooked remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
Putting the Tarts together
- Spoon some cooled creme patisserie into the bottom of the tart case and cover with fruit.
- Mix the honey and water together and gently brush over the fruit to glaze
- Serve and Enjoy!
I hope you enjoy!
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