It´s that time of the year again, where you can see a lot of people picking strawberries on the fields around and one or the other strawberry might even find the way in a belly, whilst picking them. In all honesty, is there somebody out there that can pick strawberries without eating a single one? I can´t and my sister definitely also not, when looking at her mouth. But I can understand that for sure. I have to admit that I hate the taste of “strawberry flavour”, so everything that is artifical, but I really like the “real” ones, so it is always a really special time of the year, when I get to eat strawberries from the region, because afterwards I do not eat strawberries for a whole year. We also do not buy the ones from Spain, so we wait until they come from Austria or we can pick them at the Strawberry field. Last week my mum brought home some from the organic market and they were utterly delicious. I ate some fresh from the box, but then we decided to make a cake from the remaining ones. A while ago I came across a Swedish cake with rhubarb and vanilla custard, which also had some Kardamom inside and I thought that this company would also work really nice with strawberries, so I tried it out! And let me say, this cake was so easy to make, but tasted really delicious and “fancy”, like if you would buy it in a expensive bakery shop. And it also looked like that! So, here comes the recipe for you.

Ingredients:

• 300g flour
• 1 egg
• 250g unsalted butter
• a pinch of salt
• 180 g sugar
• 500ml milk
• 4 capsules of kardamom
• 2 packs of vanilla pudding powder
• g sugar
• 500g strawberries
• 250 ml water
• 2 tbsp. potato starch

1. For the dough, put together the flour, pinch of salt, 200g butter, egg and 80 g sugar into a bowl, and knead until you have smooth dough. Wrap it in cling film and put it into the fridge for half an hour.
2. For the filling, mix the vanilla pudding powder with 2-3 tbsp. of milk and 2 tbsp. of sugar until you have no lumps left. Bring the remaining milk and the Kardamom capsules to boil and then add the powder mixture and let it boil again, but stir the whole time, otherwise it might burn. You can take out your Kardamom capsules if you want, but I just left them in for flavour. Leave your pudding to cool down.
3. Preheat your oven to 190 C and prepare a tarte tin with some parchment paper or butter. Then you can roll out the dough and place it in the form or just push the dough in until it is evenly distributed. Place some tin foil and beans or nuts on top to blind-it. Bake it for 20-25 minutes or until it is golden and the dough cooked. Take it out of the oven and leave it to cool completely.
4. In a bowl whisk 50g butter and 2 tbsp. of sugar until it is pale and fluffy. Then slowly add the pudding mixture step by step and mix really well. Spread the vanilla mixture over the baked and coole dough and leave to cool. Meanwhile you can wash and slice the strawberries.
5. If the cake is cool, you can place the strawberries on top as you like. For the glace mix the starch with 1 tbsp of sugar and 2 tbsp water until you have a smooth mixture. Bring the remaining water to boil and mix in if it is boiling. Put the glace immediately over the strawberries and place the cake in the fridge. If you want you can add some pistachios , shortly after spreading the glace. That´s it, all you have to do now is to enjoy a big piece!