Café Murano's muscovado tart

Method

• step 1

  Put all the dry ingredients for the pastry together in a food processor and blend.Add the butter and vanilla seeds, and pulse until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.Add the egg yolks and pulse again until a dough forms. Tip out, form into a disc, wrap in clingfilm and chill for an hour.

• step 2

  To make the filling, heat a dry frying pan and add the sugar. The bottom layer of sugar will melt and turn treacly. Shake the pan to move the sugar around. When the sugar begins to smoke, you know it’s ready (it won’t all be melted). Once the sugar is smoking, take it off the heat (or it will burn) and deglaze it by whisking in the madeira a little at a time, which will melt all the sugar – don’t worry if there are a couple of lumps.

• step 3

  Put the sugar back on the heat and whisk in the cream and salt. Remove from the heat and whisk in the egg yolks. Leave to cool, then chill in the fridge while you make the pastry case.

• step 4

  Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured work surface and line a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin, leaving a little of the pastry overlapping. It might crumble, but stick it back together, making sure that there are no holes. Chill for at least 30 minutes. Line with baking parchment and baking beans.

• step 5

  Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Cook the pastry for 20 minutes before removing the beans and cook for a further 5 minutes. Remove from the oven when the pastry is cooked. Turn the oven down to 140C/fan 120C/gas 1. Pour the filling into the case and cook for 45 minutes, until the filling has set but still has a slight wobble. Allow to cool, then with a serrated knife cut off any overhang of pastry. Serve with crème fraîche.