Strawberry Blossom Tart

This weekend was my cousin's fiance's "thunderstorm" and for those of you like me, that had never heard of such a thing...it is a shower for the groom. As always, I was in charge of a dessert..so, as I was looking through one of my Chocolatier magazine, I found this recipe and thought that it sounded great and light for an outside event, and how can you go wrong with a White Chocolate pastry cream and strawberries, when it is almost 100 degrees. It was a ton of fun to make and looked very pretty...although, I am not sure if I liked the taste of it or not. It is kind of iffy.. Here is the recipe and if anyone else out there tries it, I would love to hear from you and what you thought about it.

Strawberry Blossom Tart

Pate Sablee:
1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 C granulated sugar
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 large egg yolk
2 Tbsp ice-cold water

White Chocolate Pastry Cream
1/2 C granulated sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
2 C milk
3 oz. high-quality white chocolate, chopped

Assembly:
1/3 C raspberry preserves
2 pints fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and quartered
Powdered sugar for dusting

1. Make pate sablee: Put butter and sugar in bowl of food processor and pulse until combined. Add flour and pulse several times, until butter is in pea-sized pieces. Add yolk and water and pulse until dough is combined, but still crumbly. Transfer dough to work surface and shape into disc. Wrap disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

2. Make pastry cream: In medium bowl, combine sugar and cornstarch. Whisk in eggs and egg yolks until smooth.
In a large saucepan, heat milk over medium-high heat until bubbles begin to form around edge of pan. Whisk about 1/3 of milk over yolk mixture until well blended. Pour in remaining hot milk, then return entire mixture to saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Let mixture boil for 1 minute while continuing to whisk. remove pan from heat and add white chocolate. Whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Transfer pastry cream to bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.
Place plastic wrap directly on surface of cream and refrigerate until ready to use.

3. Line tart pan: Remove dough from refrigerator and let softened 15-20 minutes, until pliable. Place dough in center of tart pan with removable bottom and press dough into bottom and up sides of pan, covering it completely and removing excess dough from edges. Chill dough in pan for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven for 425 degrees. Line the pan with parchment paper and fill with pie weights, beans or rice. Place pan in center of oven and bake for 7 minutes. Remove pan from oven and reduce oven temp to 350 degrees. Remove parchment paper and weights from crust and bake for an additional 8-12 minutes, until it is just beginning to turn light golden brown around the edges. Cool completely and remove tart from pan.

4. Assemble the tart: Brush bottom and sides of the tart crust with raspberry preserves. Fill with the white chocolate pastry cream and top with the strawberries, pointed end up. Lightly dust with powdered sugar before serving.

**I cheated a little with the crust part :) ...and it turned out fine. I didn't have any pie weights, so I docked the bottom of the crust with holes, and baked it on 350 for about 15 minutes. It turned out the same that it would have if I used the weights, it didn't puff at all.

Happy Baking!!