Photo by Chelsie Craig, food styling by Claire Saffitz
If eggy flan-like desserts are your thing, you are going to love this crustless vanilla-infused tart. Pastry cream is made by cooking eggs, dairy, sugar, and a thickener. To avoid scrambling the eggs, many recipes employ a technique called tempering, in which you add a bit of hot dairy to the eggs to gradually bring up the temperature. For this tart recipe, we wanted to know what would happen if we nixed tempering (and the extra bowl and ladle) and instead slowly brought up all the ingredients together. The result: a smooth pastry cream with a bit less fuss—and a lot less mess.