Strawberry and Pistachio Tart

How to make a French strawberry tart from scratch with lush pistachio pastry cream. It’s also a useful recipe for using up 5 egg yolks.

This recipe was one of my sources of inspiration for my book, Teatime in Paris, where you’ll find the original recipe for tartlets with their step-by-step instructions in more detail.

French Strawberry Tart

French strawberries (Mara des Bois, Plougastel, Gariguettes) cheer us up no end with their sweet, candy-like flavours. Every Spring and Summer we have the treat of fresh strawberries from the market, simply on their own, with our morning maple granola – or with homemade ice cream.

However, at home we love making berry tarts in summer.

How to Make a French Tart Shell

This is an easy homemade recipe for making a French tart shell with sweet pastry.
Sweet pastry is much easier than Pâte Sablée, as there’s less butter and no need to control temperature of butter, egg etc.

If making one big tart shell, then I suggest blind baking using baking beans. However, there’s no need to blind bake if making 8 individual tartlets. 

• Using a stand mixer with a paddle beater (or simply by hand), mix the butter, salt and sugar until pale and creamy. (If making the dough by hand, use cold butter). Gradually add the other ingredients and stop mixing immediately as soon as the dough forms into a ball.
• Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for an hour.
• Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to a 28cm/11 inch circle with 5mm thickness and transfer to a 24cm (9 inch) non-stick tart tin.
• Press into the tart tin and trim off excess pastry with your fingers or roll over the edges with a rolling pin (any extra dough can make another tartlet so no waste).
• Prick the pastry with a fork and top with baking paper (cut to size – I use the same one several baking sessions for convenience) and fill with washed coins, rice or dried beans to blind bake the pastry.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown then remove the baking beans. Leave to cool, remove from the tin and set aside.

What Kind of Flour is Best for French Sweet Pastry?

I prefer using French plain flour (cake/pastry flour) called ‘Farine fluide Type/T45‘, as it’s extra fine for making sweet pastry. However standard plain all-purpose flour (Farine de Blé Type 55) is good if you can’t find it – just sift the flour first before baking.
See my glossary of UK and USA baking terms.

More step-by-step instructions are in my pâtisserie recipe book, Teatime in Paris, with a whole chapter devoted to Tarts.

Pistachio Tart Filling

Those of you who love making desserts that use egg whites (to save up for macarons, chocolate mousse and tuiles), pastry cream is another handy recipe to use up egg yolks.

What’s best about pastry cream? You can adapt the flavours for many classic French desserts. Strawberry tarts are delicious with classic vanilla pastry cream (crème pâtissière) but when combined with pistachios, it’s an extra luxury. Take the association of strawberries with this pistachio, vanilla and wasabi ice cream. It sounds scary with wasabi but believe me, you need to try their strawberry and pistachio flavour combinations together.

This pistachio filling was inspired by a teatime goûter at the Jacquemart André Museum’s café, with its Tiepolo ceilings and Belgian tapestries to fit this lush dessert. From the legendary trolley of Parisian patisseries, I chose a sumptuous slice of their Tarte aux fraises à la pistache. As a result, I recreated a homemade version of this as a reminder of a perfect way to spend an afternoon in Paris. For more, see my list of Best Tearooms in Paris.

So here’s my Strawberry Tart with a lush, yet subtle, pistachio pastry cream. It’s berry good indeed.
Also delicious topped with raspberries. Serve as one large tart or 8 small tartlets.

Love pistachio or almonds as a filling?  See my other recipes:

– a strawberry tart with almond frangipane filling – it’s disguised upside and glazed as a cake!

– gâteau Saint-Germain almond tart

Strawberry & Pistachio Tart

This recipe was first published 30 June 2013 but has now been completely updated with new images and more explanations of the recipe, with thanks to my publishers at Waverley Books.

Have you made this recipe?

I’d love to know how it turned out from the blog or my book. Please let me know by leaving a rated review below. It means so much to have your support. On Instagram? Share a photo and tag @JillColonna and hashtag it #madaboutmacarons. À bientôt!