Skip to main content

A Fresh Strawberry Tart from Julia Child!

***I've become such a big fan of Julia Child. I'm currently reading her memoir, "My Life in France," and I'm in love! Brad recently gave me a beautiful set of her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" Volumes I & II. This is the very first recipe that I've tried out from Volume I. This recipe stood out to me because #1: I LOVE strawberries! and #2: Fresh fruit tarts just scream "summer!" to me. The recipe itself is pretty simple. Don't let the length scare you away...it's broken down into 3 parts, and if you tackle each one separately you'll be done in a breeze!

The tarts that line the bake case shelves in Paris all displayed gorgeously divine fruit tarts. I noticed they all had a beautifully shiny glaze over the top. This recipe definitely yields the same thing. I was so happy with the finished tart! It was almost too pretty to eat...I've never let that stop me in the past, though...hah.***

Tarte Aux Fraises
(Fresh Strawberry Tart - cold)
Recipe by Julia Child
Source: Mastering the Art of French Cooking; Volume I

Ingredients:
A 10-inch fully baked pastry shell (see "Sugar Crust" recipe below)
1 quart large, ripe, handsome strawberries
1 cup red currant jelly (apricot jelly can be substituted if you have trouble finding red currant)
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
2 tbsp. kirsch or cognac (I used Frangelico hazelnut liqueur)
1 1/2 to 2 cups chilled creme patissiere (custard filling...recipe below)

Directions:
Hull the strawberries. If necessary to wash them, do so very quickly, and drain them on a rack.

Boil the currant jelly, sugar, and liqueur in a small saucepan until last drops from spoon are sticky. Paint the interior of the shell with a thin coating of the glaze and allow to set for 5 minutes. This will give the shell a light waterproofing. Reserve the rest of the glaze for the strawberries. Warm it briefly if it has hardened.
Spread a 1/2-inch layer of creme patissiere in the bottom of the pastry shell.

Arrange a design of strawberries over the cream. Put the largest strawberry in the center, and graduate down in size, placing the berries closely together, their stem ends in the cream. Spoon or paint over them a thin coating of the glaze, and the tart is ready to serve. Because of the glazed waterproofing in the bottom of the shell, the filled tart may wait an hour or so.

Sugar Crust
"Pate Sablee"
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups flour
3 to 7 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/8 tsp. double-action baking powder
7 tbsp. fat: 5 tbsp chilled butter and 2 tbsp. chilled vegetable shortening
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp. water
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
Place the flour, sugar, butter, vegetable shortening, and baking powder in the mixing bowl. Rub the fat and dry ingredients together rapidly with the tips of your fingers until the fat is broken into bits the size of small oatmeal flakes. Blend in the egg and vanilla, and knead the dough rapidly into a ball. Place on a pastry board and with the heel of your head, not the palm, rapidly press the pastry by two-spoonful bits down on the board and away from you in a firm, quick smear of about 6 inches. The dough will be quite sticky if you have used the full amount of sugar. Form again into a ball, wrap in waxed paper, and chill for several hours until firm.

Creme Patissiere
(Custard Filling)
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup flour
2 cups boiling milk
1 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
Gradually beat the sugar into the egg yolks and continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes until the mixture is pale yellow and forms "the ribbon".

Beat in the flour.

Beating the yolk mixture, gradually pour on the boiling milk in a thin stream of droplets.

Pour into saucepan and set over moderately high heat. Stir with a wire whip, reaching all over bottom of the pan. As sauce comes to a boil it will get lumpy, but will smooth out as you beat it. When boil is reached, beat over moderately low heat for 2 to 3 minutes to cook the flour. Be careful custard does not scorch in bottom of pan.

Remove from heat and beat in the butter, then vanilla extract. If the custard is not used immediately, clean it off the sides of the pan, and dot top of custard with softened butter to prevent a skin from forming over the surface. Creme Patissiere will keep for a week under refrigeration, or may be frozen.

Comments

Stacy Hoover said…
I love strawberry recipes in the summer! This one will be added to my recipe box for sure! Thanks for sharing, it looks delicious!
Jennifer said…
Such a perfect tart!! And wow so simple!! :)
This looks amazing - great job!
Gorgeous! I've been wanting to get her cookbook and read her memoir ever since I saw the previews for Julie & Julia or whatever it's called. Great job on the beautiful tart!
jidgede said…
i absolutely LOVE your blog....your photographs are excellent and i love the way you explain everything....i have really enjoyed looking at your european trip.....we lived in italy for 2 years and your pictures brought back such fond memories....i am so glad you and your spouse got to do this while you are so young...........your blog is awesome....just can't tell you how much i am enjoying it....i like how you told about your favorite cookbooks and i loved the blog where you showed us your favorite "utensils"......you mentioned working for southern living once, what do you do now? please keep up the great blogging....jennie in tn <><
You could be the NEXT Julia Child.
Beautiful job!
Snooky doodle said…
wow this looks marvellous :)
By looking at it, water comes to my mouth. I love strawberries. Also its good for health.
Anonymous said…
Umm.. I was reading your recipe and I was wondering if it would be okay to do without the liqueur? Or is there another substitute that does not include alcohol? Please and thank you!
Celeste said…
Hi! Yes...you can certainly leave out the liqueur...no problem! Thank you for your comment! :)
Anonymous said…
Hi! I used to be addicted to these in Paris! Thanks so much for sharing the recipe and the final product, your tart came out gorgeous!

I have a question, did you use a false-bottomed cake pan to bake the crust? Or would any pan work?

Thank you and keep up the good work!

-D
Unknown said…
Very nice!
I love Julia Child's recipes!
Congrats for your photos. :)
Anonymous said…
OMG, thank you for this recipe. I am a French woman now living in Minnesota and ever since I was born, this tarte aux fraises has been my birthday cake. I asked my US husband who isn't the most experimented cook to do it for my birthday. He even did an home-made pâte sablée! It looked terrible but it wasn't so bad.

Popular posts from this blog

Absolutely Sinful Cinnamon Rolls

***Alrighty, here are the cinnamon rolls that I mentioned in my previous post. I put these together on Christmas Eve, and then baked them on Christmas morning. Let me just tell you...there's nothing quite like the smell of yummy cinnamon rolls wafting through the house on Christmas morning...ahhhhh...so wonderful! This is going to be a new tradition for us...fresh, homemade rolls on Christmas. I thought that I might try this recipe, and then maybe try a new one next year...until I found one that I really loved. However, I hit the jackpot on the first try! This is THE recipe that I'll always use. UPDATE:   Since originally writing this post in 2008, I've  made these cinnamon rolls every year for Christmas!  They are a holiday tradition that my family looks forward to all year!  You can see my other posts here, with lots more photos of these sinful cinnamon rolls: CHRISTMAS 2009 CHIRSTMAS 2010 CHRISTMAS 2011 The great thing was that I could prepare them on Christmas

My Favorite Quiche!

***It's not often that a recipe is worthy of re-posting.  I think I've only done that once or twice in the entire time I've written this blog.  However, this is one of those rare occasions.  Back in 2009 when Brad and I went to Europe, we had the most amazing Quiche Lorraine at the incredible Les Deux Magots cafe in Paris.  It was delicious and was served alongside a yummy salad of fresh greens (Quiche Lorraine sur Salade Verte).  Oh, it was heaven on a plate!  It also didn't hurt that we were sitting on the patio of one of the most famous cafes in Paris, after all...haha.  The atmosphere and people-watching in that particular area are hard to beat. I'll never forget the elderly lady that was sitting at the table right next to us (the tables were situated pretty close together).  She was dressed to-the-nines, was all by herself, and was just the quintessential, classy Parisian lady.  I wish more than anything that I had tried to strike up a conversation with her

Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread - Southern Living

***There seriously aren't very many things that smell better than Banana Nut Bread baking in the oven.   Don't you agree?  This recipe for Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread from Southern Living magazine was one of the very first recipes that I added to this blog...back in November 2007!  In fact, I came across it when I worked for the magazine as a Marketing Intern.  Back then, I didn't have a photo for every recipe, and the blog post was simply the recipe and nothing else.  Because this is my go-to recipe for Banana Nut Bread (and because it is so amazing!), I thought that it deserved a little more attention.  This is quite honestly some of the best Banana Nut Bread that I've ever had.  An entire 8oz. package of cream cheese is added right to the batter, along with 4 mashed bananas.  The cream cheese adds so much to this recipe, with an incredibly moist texture being the main component.  Plus, the roasted pecans are the perfect addition.  Roasting the nuts brings out