members recipes

A nice way of using strawberries for a summery pudding. Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients
1 quantity of sweet almond pastry
500g strawberries, hulled and halved
100g caster sugar
2 tspns vanilla sugar
100g cornflour, plus extra
5 egg yolks
425 ml milk or soya milk
25g butter or hard margarine
2 tbspn redcurrant jelly
1 tbspn water

Method
Roll out the pastry and line a 20cm flan dish (with a removable base). Line and weight with rice or baking beans, and bake in a hot oven 190C/top right Aga for 10 minutes. Remove the lining and bake for a further 5 minutes until crisp and golden. Leave to cool, then carefully remove from the flan dish and place on a plate.

Whilst this is cooking, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until light in colour and creamy in texture. Then carefully whisk in the cornflour. Heat the milk in a saucepan until just under the boil, and add slowly to the egg mixture. Transfer back to the saucepan and, whisking all the time, heat until the mixture thickens and boils. Keep whisking and cooking for a few minutes (you may have to add the extra cornflour with a little milk to thicken further) to remove any floury taste. When really thick and glossy, beat in the butter. Put into a clean bowl, cover and refrigerate.

Once the custard is cool, spread over the pastry base, then cover with the strawberries.

In a small pan, heat the redcurrant jelly and water, stirring until the jelly has dissolved. Glaze the strawberries with this mixture.

Serve at room temperature for the best flavour combination.