Henry Harris, chef and co-owner of Bouchon Racine in London EC1, has shared his recipe for tarte Vaudoise à la crème, a dessert that relies on very few ingredients and an unusual baking technique. The tart is based on an old recipe by Frédy Girardet, one of the all-time greats, and appears in Harris's latest book, The Racine Effect.
A simple yet striking dessert
Often, the greatest dishes are made from very few ingredients and with pretty standard techniques, and this tart is one of them. A pastry case is spread with sugar and cream, then dotted with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. The pastry is not blind baked, but filled and baked in a very hot oven.
That sounds wrong, but it is not: a fierce heat is needed to bake the pastry under its filling and to meld the cream, sugar and butter. A pinch of flour is mixed with the sugar and, as it all boils up, that smidgen of flour holds everything together as it bubbles and reduces until it takes on the appearance of condensed milk while the pastry cooks and toasts at the edges.
Recipe details
Harris still uses Girardet's quantities because, unsurprisingly, they work perfectly. The recipe serves four to six and takes about an hour to cook, plus cooling time.
For the pastry, you will need 140g plain flour (plus extra for dusting), 5g baking powder, a pinch of salt, a generous pinch of caster sugar, 60g unsalted butter at room temperature and cut into small pieces, and 50ml cold whole milk. For the filling, you will need 100g caster sugar, a generous pinch of plain flour, 250ml double cream, 50g cold unsalted butter diced, and a little ground cinnamon, ideally freshly ground.
Method and serving
Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7. To make the pastry, sift the flour into a large bowl, then mix in the baking powder, salt and sugar. Add the butter, then work it in with your fingertips until the mix resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Pour in the milk and mix with as light a hand as possible to bring the dough into a ball. Do not rest the pastry, because that will activate the baking powder too soon and the pastry will puff up through the filling while it cooks. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface into a circle big enough to line a 25cm tart tin, then lay it in the tin and prick the pastry all over with a fork.
For the filling, mix the sugar and flour, then spread it in an even layer over the base of the pastry case. Pour in the cream, then scatter over the diced butter and a light sprinkling of ground cinnamon. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the edges of the pastry are a good biscuit colour and the cream has bubbled up and looks thick and almost about to split.
Remove from the oven and transfer the tin to a rack to cool completely. To serve, carefully remove the tart from its tin and cut into slices. The book, The Racine Effect, is published by Quadrille at £40, and can be ordered from the Guardian Bookshop for £36.
