a tarte aux fraises for pink sky nights and heartache
There are moments — days, sometimes, but more often nights — that linger in the memory: the hazy pink hues of the skyline, the exact watercolour shades of the Seine, the cigarette smoke on the breeze. For no particular reason sometimes, except a vague realisation, dawning dimly in the midst of an otherwise everyday moment, that this will stay with you.
One Saturday night lately, after a particularly draining week, I went over to a friend’s place in the 19th arrondissement to help her set up for her birthday party. It was one of those nights where a flakier person than me would have cancelled; I’d lain on the sofa all day in a state of burnout and would gladly have continued my sojourn there were I a lesser human. But I am not, so I poured myself a drink and put on a solid playlist and begrudgingly did my makeup, then took the metro over. I’m so glad I did.
From her 14th floor balcony you can see the Eiffel Tower, tall and proud in the pink evening sky. I helped her light candles there, and move her dining table to one side, stood vigil while she chose her dress and jewellery: the myriad unspoken moments of intimacy in the gaps between life’s big moments which we women know so well. I watched her pour crème pâtissière into pâte sablée — all homemade — in a black linen dress while she told me of the sadness and disappointment of being ghosted after a recent date with someone she’d been excited about while I cut the strawberries. I poured a whole bottle of champagne and a whole bottle of St Germain and some sparkling water into a punch bowl while her friends arrived, their eyes bright and smiling, their look elegant and continental like hers, and I layered the strawberries atop the crème pâtissière. They marvelled at the beautiful tarte aux fraises she had made — but that she said we had made. I cut the strawberries, I shrugged in my accented French, and all night people told me they were most excellently cut strawberries while I poured more champagne into punch bowls and watched the lights of the Eiffel Tour light up against a sky that slowly faded to black and midnight became 1 and I added chopped strawberries to the punch bowl and everybody told me that was a very English thing to do but they were here for it and some girl told me her life story.
And I think a lot about that tarte aux fraises now. And how it’s wild to ghost a woman who can make a tarte aux fraises in a Parisian kitchen in a black linen dress at twilight just before a party. And how sometimes, in the rollercoaster of life, we unintentionally miss the most important moments: the laughter of clumsily moving a table together in dim light, the confessions of heartache while cutting strawberries, the shared awe of marvelling at the pink sky at dusk.
I couldn’t eat her tarte aux fraises, of course. I had told her in advance that I’d bring the vegan dessert — shop bought from Copain because I’ve had very little energy, physically or mentally, to cook lately. But the tarte aux fraises lodged firmly in my mind, and the strawberries are beautiful and plentiful now, so why not. May flows into June, and life goes on.
N.B. pâtisserie isn’t typically my thing — it requires far too much precision and attention to detail for my liking. Nor have I ventured much into the world of vegan pâtisserie, but I did a lot of research into vegan crème pâtissière (pastry cream) and basically everyone seems to be in agreement about the ingredients: soy milk/cream, cornflour/starch, sugar, vegan butter, real vanilla. After that it was just a question of playing around with quantities. I made my own pâte sablée too, and have linked the recipe I followed, but honestly I don’t feel in any position to tell you how to bake pastry. More often than not I use store-bought.
Ingredients
1 x pâte sablée pie crust, either shop bought or homemade. I used the ingredients more or less from this recipe (roughly 1.5 cups + 1 tbsp plain white flour, 1/2 cup vegan butter, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, pinch of salt), baked for 10 mins at 200 C (fan) which worked well for me, but you can equally buy ready-made pastry and follow the packet instructions for baking it.
1/4 cup cornflour / cornstarch
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup unsweetened soy cream
3 tbsp granulated sugar
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean pod (really important to use good quality vanilla here, not just extract)
2 tbsp vegan butter
Strawberries, for garnishing the top. Exactly how many will depend on what design you go for, but allow for up to 500g.
Method
Place the cornflour in a bowl and very very gradually pour in the soy milk, stirring constantly. You don’t want a single lump so you need to stir it in little by little while it absorbs smoothly. Continue until all the soy milk is stirred in.
Transfer the soy milk / cornflour slurry to a pan and slowly stir in the soy cream in the same gradual manner. Lastly, stir in the sugar and vanilla, then place on a medium-low heat, stirring constantly until it starts gradually to thicken and comes to the boil.
Once it comes to the boil, whisk constantly for 2-3 minutes, with vigour. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter until fully melted and combined, and transfer it to a bowl.
Cover with clingfilm (directly on the surface of the cream so that a skin does not form) and refridgerate for several hours (or overnight) until fully chilled and thickened further.
Meanwhile, ensure you’ve baked your pastry crust and given it time to cool completely. Wash, de-stalk and chop/prepare the strawberries into whatever formation you desire: halves, slices, or some left whole. Pinterest is a good source of inspiration if you want some good ideas for tarte designs.
Once the pastry and cream are fully cooled, pour the cream into the pastry case and then arrange the strawberries on top in your desired manner. If you wish, you can sieve a little icing sugar over the top. It’s best served immediately.