Not A Cooks Blog ... Mastering French Cuisine With Julia Child ... (Once A Week): Week 16: Tarte aux Fraises

I usually try to complete my weekly cooking challenge on a Saturday, although this week, I must admit, the need for a nana nap on Saturday afternoon override any other item on my to do list. I found myself unconscious for 2 1/2 hours and was quite a pathetic specimen for the rest of the evening.
Tempted to do a Nigella with an avocado on toast equivalent, instead I committed myself to the cause and booked out some of my Sunday afternoon to complete a Tarte aux Fraises ... a Fresh Strawberry Tart.
I love summer and living in Hawke's Bay we are fortunate to be surrounded by orchards and a ready supply of fresh fruit including strawberries. Strawberries are well liked in our family, the issue was keeping the strawberries safe from little paws that were destined for the tarte.
Julia describes fresh fruit tarts as easy to make, pretty to look at and refreshing to eat. They consist of a fully baked tart shell, a glaze that protects the shell and a layer of crème pastissiere.Then of course the design of strawberries on top.
I deviated from the recipe today avoiding the addition of cognac both in the glaze, and custard filling believing that this would be more palatable to eldest daughter. I also didn't have red currant jelly for the glaze and thought the Pams strawberry jam, which was more jelly like, would do the trick.
Everything was lined up - the pastry shell, the hulled strawberries, the crème pastissiere and the glaze. However the custard was too thin, so I looked at trying to stiffen it up... this was the beginning of a mess!
I couldn't get a nice dimensional looking finish to the strawberries and certainly couldn't get them to snuggle close together. I avoided adding the glaze on top as despite following the rewarming instructions, it was way to thick.
Although the finished product looked ok intack, and the pastry unmolded fine onto the plate the serving and the tasting was a unmitigated disaster. Even though the custard was thicker then before there was no way you could provide a nice tidy slice. So the individual servings looked a mess and the custard tasted like flour. On a positive note, I do believe though I have invented an ecological friendly industrial grade sealant. The glaze I made and painted on the pastry shell as a light waterproofing readily stuck to your teeth which required the family members to scrape it off with their finger nails.
According to my family I should be glad that this "non achieved" dish was only witnessed by them and how embarrassing it would have been if we had had visitors! The fresh strawberries were extracted from the custard goo and readily eaten. Maybe that avocado on toast idea wasn't so bad after all!