Strawberry tart

(Serves 8 to 10)

An inner coating of thinly applied white chocolate makes the tart ‘juice proof’ and prevents the pastry getting soggy. It is a trick you can apply to all your fruit tarts.

250g plain flour
100g ground almonds
175g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
50g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence
1 egg, lightly beaten
Iced water, as necessary
200 g white chocolate
1 kg strawberries
5 tablespoons red currant jelly
600 ml whipping cream - optional

• Sift the flour and ground almonds. Rub in the butter, stir in the sugar and add the vanilla essence, egg and enough water to bind to a smooth dough. Cover and chill for half an hour or so. Roll out the pastry and line a greased and floured 25 cm loose bottomed flan tin or ring set on a prepared baking sheet. The ground almonds make this quite a fragile pastry, and if you find it difficult to roll it out, press it over the base and up the side of the prepared tin. Trim off the edges of pastry, and prick all over with a fork. Line with foil or greaseproof and cover the base with ceramic baking ‘beans’ or dried beans.

Bake ‘blind’ (empty) in a pre-heated oven at 180˚C, gas mark 4, for 20 minutes. Remove the beans and lining paper and return the pastry to the oven for five to eight minutes more to complete cooking, pricking it again if it has puffed up. Remove from the ring and cool on a wire rack.

Melt the white chocolate gently in a bowl set over hot water and brush all over the inside of the cold pastry case. Once it has set, you can fill the tart, either with a single fruit, appropriately prepared, or with concentric circles of a variety of fruit; peaches are particularly good with the almond pastry. Melt the redcurrant jelly, allow to cool slightly but not set. Brush it over the fruit, and allow the jelly to set. Serve the whipped cream separately, or, if you prefer, pouring cream, vanilla ice cream or Greek yoghurt.