Summer Delight

Summer to me is all about flavours and smells. Our garden is packed with strawberries, raspberries and blue berries. Even the black currants are doing their best to outshine the other berries. On a lazy Sunday Paul and I fancied something nice to go with our coffee but it had to be a bit healthy as well...

Within the hour we had these lovely mini tarts topped with berries from the garden. You can go really crazy on this recipe as it is dead easy to make and the variations are endless. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
- 1 package of puff pastry (I confess; it was a store bought package)
- 0.5 liter milk
- custard powder (or you can use ready made custard from the supermarket if you're in a real hurry)
- sugar
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- fresh berries (or other fruit)
- icing sugar (optional)
- muffin pan

Preparation:
Preheat the oven according the instructions on your pastry packet. Make sure the puff pastry has defrosted before you start cutting it. I use a small plate or big saucer to cut circles out of the puff pastry. Line the circles inside the holes of your muffin pan. Don't let the pastry stick out of the pan too much otherwise the edges will collapse back inside and you won't be able to fill your tart cases afterwards. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg and sprinkle over sugar. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the pastry has a nice gold/brown colour. Take out of the oven and gently press the insides of the pastry cases flat with the back of a spoon. Let it cool on a wire rack and take out of the muffin pan to cool even more.
In the meantime, prepare the custard according to the directions on the back of the packet. I used half a litre of milk, 6 Tbsp custard powder and 6 Tbsp sugar. This will give you a thick, more pudding like consistency. Cool down in a sink with cold water and keep on stirring to prevent lumps. If you still have some lumps, no panic as you can easily get rid of them by straining the custard through a sieve. Pour the custard when cool in the tart cases and top with a variety of berries. Sift over icing sugar and they're ready to serve.

variations:
- Serve the tartlets with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or some whipped cream.
- Use slices of banana, apple, grape, pear. Heat some clear fruit juice (e.g. apple juice) and stir in some gelatin. Add the fruit mixture and let it cool in the fridge until almost set. Pour mixture over tartlets and let the gelatin set further until firm.
- Before adding custard to the tart cases, pour some melted chocolate on the base. This prevents the pastry from going soggy and tastes delicious as well.