What you’ll need
225g Healthy Baker Plain Flour
1 pinch salt
4 tablespoon icing sugar
150g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
60mls iced water
For the panna cotta filling
3 Titanium gelatin sheets
250mls cream
1 vanilla bean
3 teaspoon caster sugar
To assemble
1 punnet strawberries, washed, hulled and cut into quarters
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 lemon lemon juice
1 packet Persian fairy floss (optional)
Combine flour, salt and icing sugar on a work surface. Bring into a small mound and make a well in the centre. Fill this with the cubed butter and a splash of the water. Use the heel of your hands to bring the mixture together, working the butter into the flour, adding more water as needed. Keep working and smooshing with the heel of your hand until you have a rough dough.
Shape into a disc, cover with plastic and place in the fridge to rest for half an hour.
Preheat oven to 200C. Roll out pastry until you have a large round disc about the thickness of a $2 coin.
Gently drape pastry over the rolling pin and lower into a 23cm/3cm deep (or thereabouts) loose-bottomed tart tin. Press pastry down into the crease where the tart shell base meets the edges and roll the pin over the top of the tart shell cutting away the excess pastry to create a nice neat edge.
Pop in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill again.
Prick the base a few times with a fork then line with baking paper, fill with either pastry weights, rice or dried beans and blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove pastry weights and baking paper and bake for another 20 minutes until the pastry looks golden, well cooked and nice and dry. Remove and let cool.
Meanwhile make the panna cotta filling;
Place the gelatin sheets (I get mine from Essential Ingredient) in a shallow bowl of cold water.
Then combine the cream, vanilla (split the bean down the centre with a sharp knife and scrape seeds into the milk, pop the pod in there too for extra flavour) and sugar in a small saucepan.
Whisk to combine and then place on medium heat and bring just to simmering point.
Remove from the stove top, squeeze excess water out of the gelatin sheets then whisk in to the hot cream. Strain out the vanilla pod and place in the fridge to cool for 10 minutes or so.
Gently pour the panna cotta mixture into the tart shell and even more gently, pop in the fridge to set for a few hours or overnight.
To serve toss the strawberries with the lemon juice and sugar and leave to macerate for 10 or so minutes. Spoon these on top of the tart and top with Persian fairy floss (optional of course but just so pretty!).
Best served the day it's made.
