Tart x 2

My first all-by-myself crust success! I actually had to fudge the recipe, which was from The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen, a bit. But it was great with the rhubarb custard - just sweet enough to counter that tart-tart rhubarb. This is for today's Sugar High Friday, theme tarts.

When making the crust, I turned on the food processor to "grate" 9 tablespoons of butter that I had cut up small then frozen and August flipped out. So I dumped the butter into a bowl, added 1/3 cup sugar, a pinch of salt and 8 ounces of flour (so great to be able to weigh my flour instead of measuring). I used a pastry blender to cut the butter in, then tossed in an egg I had beaten a bit. Dumped it into a plastic bag, sealed it and formed the dough into a ball. Refrigerated for an hour, then formed it into a disk and stuck it back in the fridge. The next morning I rolled it out, froze it for a while to make it easier to work with, then put it in my 10-inch tart pan. The recipe actually much more dough than you need (about 1/4 more), which is great for a novice roller-outer. (I used the scraps to make mini tarts with the leftover custard I had.) Pricked the bottom, refrigerated it for about an hour (at least 20 minutes), then baked it lined with foil and rice for 10 minutes in a 375 degree oven, then removed the foil and rice and baked it for another 5 minutes.

Yesterday after making the crust dough I cut up the rhubarb, removing the strings, and tossed it with 1/3 cup of sugar to macerate. Today I drained off the liquid and reduced it, then tossed it, with some grated orange rind and a splash of Cointreau, with the rhubarb. Spread the rhubarb in the par-baked crust, then poured the custard in (3/4 cup heavy cream, 3 whole eggs and 1 yolk, 1/3 cup sugar whisked together - I also added some of the liquid that was left from the rhubarb). I didn't want to overflow it so I didn't use all the custard, either. Baked it for 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven, until the custard was starting to brown around the edge and was firm in the center.