Strawberry tartlets

I've been in awe of the hyper-organised types who always have things stashed in the freezer to be whipped out in emergencies for some time. I had my own little moment of culinary wizardry recently, which should reinforce any such desires.

A few weeks ago, I made some shortcrust pastry. (I've also reached the point where I ignore recipes for pastry, and do my own. Finally, I have pastry which responds to my orders!) Deciding to use only half for some little apple pies, I froze the other half. Last weekend, when I was at a loss to make some pudding-cakey thing for my mother, I realised I could just whip out the leftover pastry.

Having defrosted it in the fridge overnight, I rolled it out, cut it and lined a cupcake tin. Although I did bake the cases blind, you can see that the pastry wasn't really weighted down enough to keep it smooth.
Whilst this cooled, I threw together some confectioner's custard, pulled out some redcurrant jelly and hoped that the frozen strawberries would defrost in a timely fashion (and not get eaten by me as I waited).

Mise en place:

Once the custard was spooned into the cases, the strawberries were (not very artfully) arranged, and warmed redcurrant jelly was brushed on top. As you can see, I ate too many strawberries so they were slightly sparse upon the custard, and the glaze was too runny. Sigh.

I'm told they tasted all right, though.


So there you go. I'd file this under 'slightly dodgy', if pushed.

A further point - keeping these in the fridge for the rest of the week was great to prevent them going off, but did render the pastry a bit soggy. Bulk baking isn't always your friend.