Nadiya Hussain's strawberries and cream custard tart recipe

This strawberries and cream custard tart is such a pretty dessert - it's light and spongy and the custard is perfectly creamy with sliced fresh strawberries on top - we love it! Once you've made your own custard, you'll never want to go back to shop - bought. It's so much smoother, plus you can control how much sugar goes in which is ideal if you're watching your figure or if you're baking for kids. This tart is perfect to serve at a party as you can get more slices out of it if you need, or if you can't bear to share, it'll serve the family, with a little bit left over (maybe)!

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g self-raising flour, sifted twice
• 3 egg yolks
• 60g caster sugar
• 20g cornflour
• 250ml whole milk
• 1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped out
• 300g strawberries, sliced
• 1tbsp icing sugar

Method

1. Line a 23x33cm tin with greaseproof paper. Heat the oven to 200C fan, gas 7.
2. In a bowl, add the eggs and sugar, and whisk until the mixture has doubled in volume and leaves a trail – it should stay on the surface for 8 secs, and the mixture should be pale and fluffy.
3. Sieve over the flour and gently fold through. Pour into the tin and bake for 10 mins until it’s golden and springs back when touched. Remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 5 mins, then turn out onto another piece of greaseproof paper and peel off the backing. Leave to cool.
4. To make the custard, add the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour to a bowl and whisk. Put the milk in a pan with the vanilla pod and seeds. Bring just to the boil, take off the heat and remove the pod. Add the hot milk to the egg mix, stirring all the time. Pour the mixture back into the pan and mix on a low heat until it thickens. Place in a bowl, cover and cool in the fridge.
5. Using a sharp knife, cut a rectangular shallow cavity out of the cake – make sure to leave a 1cm gap all around the edge of the cake and don’t cut all the way through. Remove the centre of the cut away.
6. Spread the cold custard in the cavity in an even layer. Add the sliced strawberries in rows, then dust with icing sugar.