Tart with the Strawberries

"How did you lose your way going to Monmouth?"

Hubby looked at me with utter amazement at my latest prematurely senior moment. Monmouth is just 12 miles from where we live and a much travelled road. We sometimes use Waitrose in Monmouth as a disasterously expensive way to save cashflow when needs must, by using the small bit of flexibility on their very flexible storecard.

My mind had been on other things. I started driving through the tunnel at the other end of the dual carriageway, held my breath and put one hand up to hold up the tunnel, as you you do*, when I realised that there is no tunnel on the way to Monmouth.

Eight miles later was finally able to come off the dual carriageway, somewhere in the middle of Wales. Returned to Monmouth. Another eight miles. Then did as much of my shopping as I had time for - which was much less time than when I had started out of course - before returning to school, another twelve miles to pick up Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast.

I had driven forty miles to do a weekly shop.

"So, anyway I 'm working tomorrow, and I've run out of time to make a cake, so please can you get two cakes for the Gymnast's birthday?" Ever mindful of the pennies (which is fortunate that one of us is, given that there are never any available at the beginning of the month, once huge mortgage for huge house for huge family has swallowed all finances in one gulp) Hubby questions the need for two. "One for her birthday, and one for her party."

The party has to take place on the Monday, as on the Sunday, her birthday, Gymnast, true to her name. has to perform in a gym competition. This means that I will be out for most of Saturday at work, and most of Sunday, at said competition, leaving no time available for making cakes. The gym that Gymnast attends is not renowned for good timings. If a competition is due to end at 3, that usually means 3 the following morning. The lady who runs it has only been doing it for 30 years so she needs a little more practice before she can get it right. Meanwhile, on competition days it's wise to keep the day clear of all other activities if by any chance you happen to have any other life.

So .............Hubby bought two cakes. One chocolate and one vanilla.

Very nice.

And then...........

We got home at 4 in the afternoon, after the gym competition.

So, we had the first cake and sang happy birthday.

Saddled with shock at not being stuffed into a hot gym for another twelve hours and having time for the guilt monster to trip in, I suddenly realised that really what I really really wanted to do was to make a cake for Gymnast after all. And, because it was a big guilt trip, it had to be a truly elaborate cake. Something really special.

And....we had some strawberries. So, what better on 1st July than to have a Tarte aux Fraises?

No recipes anywhere, even Delia couldn't oblige.

So onto the internet.

Found one.

In French.

Not quite trusting my knowledge of the language sufficiently to read it completely correctly, I used Google translate, which came up with the following method:

Tart with the strawberries
For the paste: put the flour, salt and butter in small pieces in a bowl. Exhaust end of the fingers. In another container, beat sugar and egg until the mixture bleaches. Mix the two preparations. Knead and make a ball. Let put back it 30 min with the refrigerator in a plastic film before using it. To preheat the furnace with 220°C (thermostat 7, 430°F). For the cream pâtissière: make boil milk. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar. Incorporate the flour, then ebullient milk without ceasing whipping to avoid the formation of grumeaux. Give the preparation in the pan and bring to boiling, then let quiver 3 minutes with soft fire without ceasing stirring up. Add the vanilla extract. Pour in a bowl or a bowl and cover. Reserve for the refrigerator. Lower the paste to sink a tart mould 25 cm in diameter. Give 20 minutes to the expenses before making cook 10 minutes. Lower the furnace with 190°C (thermostat 5) and leave 15 more minutes. Let warm and unmould. Pour the cream cold pâtissière on the paste. Lay out the strawberries cut in 2 overcoats. Powder with sugar freezes and are useful immediately.

And.........despite the lack of furnace available, and having to use icing sugar instead of blocks of frozen sugar, and using my food processor instead of exhausting my fingers, it worked quite well really.

I put it on the table after dinner, feeling slightly smug at my brilliance of having made a magnificent Tarte aux Fraises.

At that moment, Hubby looked over to the Gordon Ramsay calendar which has sat on the wall since arriving free in the Sunday Times at Christmas.

Did you know that the July recipe is for a french tart?" He said.

And there it is indeed. Not a fishnet in sight, but a tart recipe nonetheless, written in perfect English.

*Family tradition when driving through any tunnel. Stops it falling down on you.