Cooking With the French Chef: Strawberry Tarts

Welcome back to Cooking With the French Chef, in which I review episodes of Julia Child’s original show, cook out of the new edition of the French Chef Cookbook and share the results with you. Past posts can be found here.

Fruit tarts are both intriguing and intimidating. No matter the season, there they sit in the bakery case, shiny and perfect and colorful and impossibly fresh. I don’t know about anyone else, but fruit tarts always seem like something to be bought rather than prepared at home.

Not, however, in Julia’s world. We’ve already tackled other seemingly intimidating recipes of hers in this series, all with varying levels of success. Queen of Sheba cake. Paella Americaine. Bouillabaise. How hard could a strawberry tart be?

Heh. I always do this. Whenever something seems easy, it turns out to be, well, not so much.

First things first, though. Here’s the episode, which originally broadcast on March 1, 1965, the fifteenth episode of Season Three:

All righty, let’s get started, and as Julia says, strawberry tarts are just a matter of assembly, and that assembly comes in phases. So many things had to happen, though, plus there were a few logistical issues, that photographing everything quickly became an exercise in It’s In There, I Promise. So here’s Phase One: The Crust, and here are Phase One’s ingredients.

Just like every pastry recipe, this one starts with incorporating the shortenings and sugar into coarse crumbs, then adding the wet ingredients. I was impressed with how fast this dough came together and how silky it was.

Kneading, though, is a bit of a struggle because I don’t have a ton of counter space or a proper baking board. I don’t know where I’d store one, to be honest. Still, as with anything else, improvisation is the order of the day, and I ended up kneading the dough in one hand while holding the waxed paper flat with the other. It was cumbersome, but that dough got a proper working and the texture was perfectly elastic.

After sticking the dough in the fridge, I let it rest while I went to see Dangerous Animals (a rather sadistic affair, by the way), and after coming back and nursing a fatigue headache, it was time for Phase Two: Pastry Cream. Here are Phase Two’s ingredients (note the leftover movie popcorn in the background, because keeping it real):

Phase Two was very streamlined as well, although I made some executive decisions. Instead of adding the hot milk to the yolks in a saucepan the way the recipe says, I added it to the yolks in a bowl, and then the whole shebang went back into the saucepan to thicken.

This is another case of It’s In There, I Promise, because it’s impossible to film or take photos while whisking hot milk into eggs and sugar.

And on a side note, my son may get an egg white omelet out of this. Pretty much egg white, anyway, because I had a yolk break.

Anyway, this cream thickened up quick. It was almost like a fancy vanilla pudding, especially once I added the vanilla. After putting a thin layer of milk on the top to keep it from getting a skin, or so Julia claimed, into the fridge it went.

Next came the baking of that lovely pastry dough. Rolling it out got a little messy, although it was fun whacking it with the rolling pin. Great way to relieve any frustrations, of course. I’d ask you all to ignore the flour everywhere, but who hasn’t had flour go everywhere sometimes?

Into my tart pan it went, and like any pastry shell, it got pricked and weighted down with beans. What I didn’t expect, though, was having to pull the thing out after five minutes, pull the beans off, prick the crust some more, and stick the shell back in for another six minutes.

Oh well, it looked great when it came out. After we ate dinner, it was time for Phase Three: The Glaze. Our ingredients, all two of ’em:

It seemed simple. Blend jam and sugar, let it boil, and make sure it’s thin enough to paint on the crust.

This step was kind of a pain. Literally. In the recipe, Julia says specifically to test the glaze’s consistency by wetting the index finger and thumb before putting a tiny bit of glaze in there and seeing if it creates a thread.

Yeah. Not good, Julia. Hot sugar is still hot sugar, even if applied to wet fingers. I got a first degree burn on my index and thumb, which felt better pretty quickly after clutching an ice cube, but I was still annoyed.

Then there was the fact that the infernal stuff not only refused to spread over my very nice pastry shell, but there wasn’t enough of it. I had to make more glaze to finish the job, and even then I wasn’t completely satisfied with it.

Next came Phase Five: The strawberries. Hulling them was remarkably tranquil, and once they were all lined up, it looked pretty amazing. Like a Rockettes audition.

And no, I didn’t photograph myself putting the pastry cream on the shell, because I was a bit busy making sure I could put it on in the first place. That stuff got so thick in the fridge that it was like putty, even with the layer of milk on top, so I added more milk and whipped away. My new Faberware whisk may never be the same.

And now for Phase Six: Assembly.

The strawberries performed nicely, there was enough glaze to kinda coat them, and finally, the danged strawberry tart was finished. And very heavy.

Serving it up and eating it, though, was another unexpected ordeal, and that’s not just hyperbole. That glaze that gave me so much trouble basically turned to glue under the pastry cream, and my husband had a time extracting the knife after making the first cut. Still, it looked pretty once we got it on the plates.

Eating it was fun, though, and yes, I’m being a wee bit sarcastic. Not only was that glue, er, glaze, a pain to cut through, it was sooooooo sweet. The beautiful pie crust, unfortunately, was overshadowed by all the craziness on top of it. I chugged a cup of Earl Grey just to keep from bouncing off the ceiling.

Would I make this again? Yes and no. Julia’s crust just might give my great-grandma’s some competition, so I may use it for a chocolate pie sometime.

Making another fruit tart, on the other hand? Not ruddy likely, unless I switch out Julia’s glaze for my mom’s fruit syrup recipe. No offense, Julia, but that glaze and I are never, ever getting back together.

A new Club 15 post is coming out tomorrow, and this tart just might make a guest appearance. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…

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The French Chef Cookbook, The French Chef, Volume One (DVD) and The French Chef, Volume 2 (DVD) are available to own from Amazon.

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