MADE AT HOME: Mark Moriarty's Raspberry Tart

THIS pâte sablée, crème pâtissière, with garniture aux framboises will undoubtedly impress your family and friends.  

Translated from French, these shortbread base tartlets with vanilla pastry cream, topped with fresh raspberries can be a bit tricky to get right, but when you do master them there is a world of opportunities for you to experiment with topping with the fruit of your choice.

Chef Mark Moriarty started cooking during his summer holidays aged 15 at the Chart House restaurant in Dingle, Co Kerry.  While completing his degree in Culinary Arts at Dublin Institute of Technology he began working under Kevin Thornton at Thorntons Restaurant for two years. In 2012 he moved to The Greenhouse on Dawson St in Dublin and began working with Mickael Viljanen.

In 2013 he was named the Euro Toques Irish Young Chef of the Year at a ceremony at Google HQ in Dublin. After completing his degree in 2014 he set up the Culinary Counter, delivering pop up restaurants around Ireland alongside chef Ciaran Sweeney.

He took his Irish cooking around the world in 2016, bringing his pop-up restaurant on tour. He cooked in Milan, Alta Badia, Melbourne, Charleston, Paris, Singapore, Amalfi, Moscow, London, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Hong Kong and finally Dublin before handing over the title in October 2016

Since then, he has been listed on the Forbes magazine 30 under 30 for innovation in the arts sector.

In January 2017, Mark moved to Melbourne, Australia and worked with Andrew McConnell at Cutler & Co restaurant.

Mark was a speaker at the 2017 Worlds 50 Best Restaurants ceremony and has worked on projects with Peroni and Bord Bia; the Irish food board.

On the back of the success of RTE's Cook-In which was fronted by Moriarty he announced that he would be stepping down as part of the team at The Greenhouse restaurant on Dawson Street in Dublin, which won its second Michelin star in October 2019.

Here he has worked at the restaurant alongside head chef Mickael Viljanen and the small kitchen brigade for the past five years.

In profiling Ireland's top chefs, The Irish Post have teamed up with Co. Fermanagh's Belleek Pottery and Daniel O'Neill's specialist cookware provider ProCook to test one of their recipes.

With readily available ingredients, the simple dishes re-created are aimed at the beginner through to the more established home chef while giving the flexibility to alter the ingredients to suit your own pallet. Along with the ingredients and method, we will be showing you how we got on with the recipe and providing a list of the equipment used.

Preparing for any dish is a crucial part in any kitchen, having the right equipment, getting the right ingredients and also something as simple as reading through the recipe and method can all contribute to success.

There are three key elements in the making of these delicious raspberry tarts, first the pastry, second the vanilla cream and finally putting it all together and assembling the raspberry tarts.

Mark Moriarty's Raspberry Tart

The dish is presented using Belleek Classic, Claddagh Dinner Plate and 5' Plate

In preparing the dish we used the following ProCook equipment:

8 small Tartlet Tins Loose Bottom

Ceramic Baking beans 600g

Micro Grater, Stainless Steel Fine

End Grain Chopping Board

Damascus 67, 20cm Chef's Knife

DesignPro Silicone Spatula

18cm Stainless steel Mixing Bowl

26cm Stainless Steel mixing bowl

ProCook piping set and nozzles

3 medium sized saucepans

ProCook Whisk Stainless Steel

You will need cling film and parchment paper while making and baking the pastry case

Ingredients:

Pastry (makes 12 tartlets)

450g strong flour

220g soft butter

150g icing sugar

2 eggs

pinch salt

Pastry cream:

250g milk

250g cream

2 vanilla pods

40g cornflour

100g egg yolk

100g sugar

Topping:

17-20 ripe raspberries per tartlet

50g crème fraiche

20g icing sugar

Lemon juice

1 vanilla pod

Mint leaves

Method:

Making the Pastry

To make the pastry, add the flour, salt, sugar to a stand mixer and blend.  If mixing my hand this will take a little longer to blend.

Add the soft butter until a soft crumb texture is achieved

Add the eggs until a soft paste is achieved

Once you have achieved a soft and not to sticky paste, wrap the pastry in cling film and rest in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours,  The pastry can be kept in the fringe overnight.

It is also a good tip, if you are not making all your tartlets in one go, halve the pastry and wrap each half in cling film before placing in the fridge to chill.

Once chilled, remove the pastry from the fridge and roll 3mm thick on a floured surface, cut into discs just slightly bigger than your tart cases.

Place the pastry disks in the freezer for 5 mins to set

Remove the pastry disks from the freezer and role for a second time to ensure these can fill your tart cases and enough excess to hand over the sides.

Place the roles pastry between two metal tart cases or using parchment paper line the cases on top of the pastry

Cook in a preheated oven at 160c for 8-10mins

Once cooked, allow to cool for 10 minutes before taking out of the tart cases and then allow to cool completely

Making the Cream

To make the pastry cream, mix the cornflour, egg yolk and sugar together in a medium saucepan

Place the milk, cream and vanilla in a medium sized saucepan and bring to the boil, pour over the egg mix and then transfer the mixture into a medium sized saucepan and return to the heat in a medium sized saucepan.

Cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until a thick texture is achieved. Pour into a bowl and chill in the fridge.

Once cold, whisk briskly or add to a blender and blend to a smooth cream texture.

To assemble, using a piping bag and medium sized nozzle, pipe the pastry cream into the bottom of the pastry cases, ideally you want the cream to fill one third of the pastry case.  Once completed, top with the raspberries and some mint leaves and dust with some icing sugar.

Season the crème fraiche with vanilla, sugar and some lemon, and place a spoonful on top of the tart

Enjoy!