Black Sesame Tart with Matcha Shortcrust – Recipe

UPDATED RECIPE HERE WITH YOUTUBE VIDEO. I pushed the boat out a little bit on this one, and was a little nervous in getting the flavour balance of the bitter green tea and the toasty sesame seeds right- I'm please to say that it worked. In fact, this tart worked very, very well.

I modelled it on my cherry frangipane tart, only I omitted the cherries, substituted the ground almonds in the frangipane filling for ground black sesame seeds, and added matcha green tea powder to the sweet shortcrust pastry. With a strawberry jam base and fresh strawberries on top, this shaped up to be a pretty impressive dessert.

I found this quirkily translated package of ground black sesame seeds at one of my favourite Chinese supermarkets. I knew I had to have it. Okay, I'm way too easily amused/ sold.

"We care what you haven't aware."

Using the ground black sesame seeds instead of ground almonds make the filling really light and fluffy, rather than the usual dense mouthfeel that nut frangipane has. Paired with the crisp and melt-in-the-mouth green tea shortcrust, this tart is perfect after an East Asian meal (in fact I cooked Korean barbecue for dinner before serving this- definitely a good move).

So what are you waiting for? "Be a chief at home easily and freely"!

Ingredients for Matcha Shortcrust:

-140g plain flour
-3tbsp cornflour
-2tbsp icing sugar
-1/2 tsp salt
-125g cold unsalted butter, cubed
-1tbsp matcha

Ingredients for Filling:

-3tbsp strawberry jam (to spread on the base of the crust)
-125g unsalted butter, softened
-125g caster sugar
-3 eggs
-150g ground black sesame seeds

Topping:

-300ml double cream, whipped with 1tbsp caster sugar to piping consistency
-1tsp matcha powder to dust
-Strawberries to garnish 

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and lightly grease a tart dish

2) To make the shortcrust, sift the dry ingredients into a bowl and rub the butter in until it begins to resemble breadcrumbs: continue to knead until it forms a dough. Now wrap it up in clingfilm and pop in the fridge for 10mins to rest

(Or just whack everything in the food processor)

3) Roll the pastry out quite thinly (I do this between two sheets of baking parchment) and ease into the tin, leaving a little hanging over the edge to help combat shrinking. Prick the base with a fork to help prevent air bubbles and whack in the freezer for about 20 minutes

4) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and lightly grease a tart dish while your shortcrust is freezing. Once frozen, take the tin out of the freezer, put some baking parchment over the pastry, fill with baking beans to weigh it down and bake blind (no peeking) for 25 minutes until it begins to get golden brown. Lift up the baking parchment with the beans and transfer to a heatproof bowl to cool (the beans will be super hot, so be careful!), pop the crust back in the oven to crisp up a little more for another 5 minutes and remove. Trim the excess pastry off of the edge with a serrated knife and let cool completely

5) Once cool, spread the base of your tart crust with jam. Make the black sesame "frangipane" by creaming the butter and sugar together until fluffy, whisking in the eggs in and finally stirring in the black sesame seed powder

6) Spoon the black sesame filling into the crust over the jam, smooth and bake for about 35 minutes or until the top shows signs of browning (be careful- the black sesame is pretty dark when baked and will disguise this)

7) Leave to cool completely before piping the cream on top, dusting with matcha and finishing off with whole strawberries

8) Slice, serve and enjoy!