Nectarine Tartelettes

When I went past the grocery store the other day, I saw that it was finally the season for nectarines, so I bought a couple and decided to whizz up little nectarine tartelettes :) What's more, I have never tried to make a crème pâtissière beforehand, so why not add one to the other? I have to say, it turned out amazingly delicous and I would definitely recommend you to try it!

 

Ingredients for 6 tartelettes

250 g flour
125g butter or margarine
60 g icing sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
1 egg

For the crème pâtissière:
4 egg yolks
80g sugar
20g vanilla sugar
40g corn flour
250 ml single cream
250 ml milk
1 vanilla pod

3 nectarines (not included in the picture as you can substitute them for any other fruit you like, for example blueberries or raspberries..)

Start off by making the shortcrust pastry: cut the cold butter into small pieces and mix it with the flour. Add in the sugar and the egg and knead together. Place in the fridge for at least half an hour - it really makes it easier to roll out the dough later on. Grease your tartelette forms with butter and roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 0,5 cm. Place the tartelette forms the "wrong" way around onto the pastry and cut around them with a sharp knife. Turn the tartelette forms over and line them with the pastry. To get rid off any access, simply roll over the edges with your rolling pin and it will easily come off. Then take a fork and prick the base of the pastry and bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven at 180°C. Just make sure that they brown nicely :)

To make the crème pâtissière, whisk the egg yolks together with the sugar until it turns into a very pale yellow colour. Mix together the corn flour with 100 ml of the milk to make sure that it does not form any lumps later on. Heat the rest of the liquids in a big sauce pan with the scraped out vanilla from the vanilla pod, as well as the pod itself. Add in the corn flour-milk mixture as well. Once boiled, leave to rest for 3 minutes and then slowly add one ladle full to the egg mixture, constantly whisking the mixture. Continue until all of it is combined and then place the egg-milk mixture back into the sauce pan and heat up for 3 minutes, until it thickens up nicely. Wash the nectarines and cut into small "moon shapes".

Let the pastry bases cool down and then assemble the tartelettes by placing a nice dollop of the crème inside and finish it off with the nectarine slices. Enjoy! :)