Pistachio, Raspberry & Crème Patissiere Tart. A mouthful to say, but a delicious mouthful to eat! Crisp pastry tart, creamy vanilla crème patissiere, tart raspberries and a salty pistachio frangipane make up this absolutely delicious dessert! Its full of flavour, different textures and can be made in advance. The ideal summertime treat!
This tart is one of my favourite recipes I’ve ever created! Seriously. Its creamy, light, packed full of flavour and is perfect for summertime The crisp pastry shell, the super creamy creme patissiere, the tart and tangy raspberries and the slightly salty pistachio frangipane all marry together to create just the most delicious dessert. It may take a little time to put together, but its honestly so worth it.
I also think it tastes best straight from the fridge, so you can make this tart ahead of time, without any stress! So lets get to it.
Key Components
- Sweet Pastry
- This pastry comes together so quickly, and has just enough sugar to sweeten but not overpower the bake. You need to make sure you follow the chilling times, and your pastry won’t shrink in the oven!
- Creme Patissiere
- Creme patissiere is the foundation for so many baked goods, and although it looks fancy it really is very simple to make. You just need to make sure you whisk continuously, otherwise it’ll catch and you’ll have burnt custard. And nobody wants that!
- Raspberries
- Fresh raspberries are best here, rather than frozen. This will prevent excess water in the tart!
- Pistachio Frangipane
- Frangipane is usually made solely with ground almonds, but for this tart you also want ground pistachios! Most supermarkets only sell pistachios in solid nut form, so to turn it into ground pistachios they need to be blitzed in a food processor till a fine crumb. Alternatively, you can buy ground pistachios online.
How to make a pistachio, raspberry and crème patissiere tart:
The creme patissiere needs to be made the night before, to give it enough time to set, making it the perfect make ahead dessert! You can bake the pastry case, make the creme patissiere and prepare the frangipane batter all the night before, and then bake together the next day. Simple!
Making the creme patissiere
Firstly, you need to whisk one large egg and two egg yolks together with the caster sugar and cornflour, and set aside. Make sure you do this first, so you are ready once everything starts to heat up.
Next combine milk and vanilla in a medium saucepan and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, then pour over the egg mixture, whisking constantly to make sure you don’t cook the eggs. This is really important!
Then, pour the whole mixture back into the saucepan and place over the heat again. Keep whisking over the heat, until the mixture thickens. You really won’t miss this – it goes from thin to super thick in seconds! So there’s really no questioning how thick is thick here – I promise! Keep on the heat for a minute or so, still whisking constantly, to cook out the cornflour. Then pour into a heatproof bowl, and press clingfilm onto the hot surface of the custard to prevent a skin forming. Set this aside to cool a little, and then place into the fridge overnight.
If you’re a little worried that you may have cooked your eggs i.e. there’s flecks of egg white in the creme patissiere! Press the cooked creme patissiere through a sieve before you place the clingfilm on top. This way you can discard any pesky cooked egg, and your creme patissiere will be nice and smooth.
Making the pastry
The pastry can be made the night before serving, so you are ready to fill and bake on the day. Or you can make and bake on the day of serving – its totally up to you as the method doesn’t change! And the method couldn’t be simpler – the flour, sugar and salt are combined in a large bowl. Then the cold butter (cold is very important!) is rubbed in until it resembles breadcrumbs. But what do we mean by ‘rubbed in’?
Essentially you rub handfuls of the cubed butter and the dry flour mixture between your fingertips, which results in the butter breaking down and coating the flour mix. It will take a good five minutes or so to achieve the breadcrumb texture.
Then the water can be added. Press the mixture around with your hand until a dough begins to form, then you can tip it out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead a little till the dough is uniform. It helps to flatten this into a fat disc before you wrap in clingfilm. Then it needs to be chilled in the fridge for at least 45 minutes.
The chilled pastry can then be rolled out, lined in the tin and blind baked. Its at this point that you can either wrap it in clingfilm to be used the next day, if you’ve made it the night before!
Making the pistachio frangipane
The pistachio frangipane is incredibly easy to put together. Firstly, cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Then beat in the ground pistachios, ground almonds and flour. Then finally beat in the eggs. Ta dah!
If you’re making this the night before, cover the bowl with clingfilm and then keep in the fridge overnight.
Assembly
Now we’re onto the fun bit! Assembling all the delicious components together.
Firstly, spread the creme patissiere into your blind baked pastry case making sure its even. Then press the fresh raspberries into the creme patissiere I think 3 in a row looks best. Then pipe the pistachio frangipane filling on top, before spreading gently till even and all the raspberries/creme patissiere are covered.
Piping the frangipane filling is much easier than spreading, as the frangipane mixture is quite thick and you’ll drag the raspberries all over the place. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a plastic sandwich bag instead, just snip one corner off to make your piping bag ‘hole’.
Finally, I added some pastry leaf decorations from the offcuts. This is totally optional, but a cute way to decorate the tart and use up leftovers! Then its just into the oven to bake, and the hard part begins. Waiting for it to cool before having a slice!!
Tips & Tricks
The crème patissiere can be made up to three days in advance, so long as you store it air-tight in the fridge. Once you are ready to use the crème patissiere, beat it lightly with a spatula to loosen.
Yes! And actually, I recommend to serve the tart cold as I think it has the best texture. The tart can also be stored at room temperature, so long as its air tight.
Yes! You can keep frangipane in the fridge, air-tight for up to one week.
Pistachio, raspberry and crème patissiere tart may be a mouthful to say, but its the most delicious mouthful to eat! Its moist, creamy, tart, a little salty/sweet….I could go on!! I really hope you love it too!
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Pistachio, Raspberry and Crème Patissiere Tart
Ingredients
Crème Patissiere
- 1 large egg
- 2 large egg yolks
- 100 g caster sugar
- 25 g cornflour
- 250 ml milk whole or semi-skimmed
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Pastry
- 225 g plain flour
- 15 g caster sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 120 g unsalted butter cold
- 2 tbsp ice-cold water
Pistachio Frangipane
- 75 g unsalted butter room temperature
- 75 g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 50 g ground pistachios
- 75 g ground almonds
- 15 g plain flour
Raspberries
Instructions
- For the creme patissiere: Put the egg and yolks in a large heatproof bowl and whisk in the sugar and cornflour until smooth. Then set aside. Place the milk and vanilla extract into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium-high heat.
- Pour the boiling vanilla milk over the egg mixture, whisking constantly to combine. Pour this mixture back into the pan and return to a medium heat. Whisk constantly until thickened, cooking for a minute or so extra to cook out the cornflour. Then pour the cooked crème patissiere into a heat-proof bowl and press a sheet of clingfilm onto the surface to stop it forming a skin. Set aside to cool a little, then place into the fridge to chill overnight.
- For the pastry: Mix the flour, caster sugar and salt together into a bowl. Add the diced butter, rubbing in with your hands until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water a little at a time until the dough starts to come together. Then tip out onto a lightly floured worktop, and knead until it comes together to form a uniform dough. Try not to handle it too much. Press the dough into a fat disc, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least 45 minutes.
- Once chilled, roll the pastry out on a floured work surface into a rectangle about 2-3mm thick. Line the tin with the pastry and place back in the fridge for 30 minutes until firm. Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas Mark 4. Once the pastry is firm, line it with baking paper and fill with baking beans. Then blind bake for 20 minutes. Then remove the beans and baking paper and bake for another 5 minutes until the pastry is dry. Leave to cool completely.
- Optional: Cut out leaf shapes from the pastry offcuts and place into the fridge to chill until assembly of tart.
- For the pistachio frangipane: Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, until well combined. Then beat in the ground pistachios, almonds and the flour. Finally, beat in the eggs until well combined. Set aside until ready to use.
- To assemble: Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas Mark 4. Remove the crème patissiere from the fridge and beat lightly to loosen. Then spread evenly in the base of the cooled and baked pastry case (still in the tin). Then spread the raspberries over the top. Place the pistachio frangipane in a piping bag, and pipe lines over the top of the raspberries. Use a palette knife to spread the frangipane gently if any of the raspberries or crème patissiere are showing. If you are adding the pastry leaves, add these on top of the frangipane – using a remaining egg white to stick and as an egg wash to glaze.
- Bake in the oven for 25minutes, until lightly golden on top. Leave to cool on a cooling rack completely before dusting with icing sugar and slicing.
