While many Uni students love to bake, it's clear that not all recipes are exactly suited to the culinary skills (or lack thereof) of most high schoolers. So, Gargoyle reporters Eleni Yannelis and Nikita Dutta have taken the liberty of testing a recipe beforehand and working out the kinks to give you the inside scoop on how to succeed in your baking endeavor. This time around, they've chosen a strawberry tart.

STRAWBERRY TART RECIPE:

The crumbly crust of the tart ready to be put in the oven. Gargoyle photo by Nikita Dutta (click to enlarge)

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Adapted from Les Foodies, this is a vanilla-almond cream, strawberry tart.

For the crust:
Ingredients for a pie with a 10 inch diameter

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup almond flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
  Nikita accidentally forgot this part (apparently she learned nothing from last time), but her crust still came out fine.
• 1 egg yolk
• a pinch of salt (which Eleni purposefully omitted)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter

For the custard:

• 4 cups milk
• 2 whole eggs plus 2 additional egg yolks
• 1 1/8 cups flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups strawberries (sliced)

PROCEDURE:

After being cooked on low heat, the custard should thicken like this. Gargoyle photo by Nikita Dutta (click to enlarge)

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Making the crust:
1. Preheat the over to 350 °F.

2. Mix the butter and sugar.

3. Add the almond flour and normal flour.

4. Mix in the egg yolk.

5. Add the baking powder (and a pinch of salt).

* At this point, Eleni recommends adding about 1/4 tablespoon of vanilla extract.
* If your crust seems at all dry, add more melted butter.

Nikita cut her strawberries in half and arranged them in concentric circles. Gargoyle photo by Nikita Dutta (click to enlarge)

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Making the custard:
1. Bring the milk and vanilla to a boil in a saucepan on low heat.

2. Once the milk and vanilla start to boil, remove from heat and add the flour and sugar.

3. In a separate bowl, beat yolks and remaining sugar.

4. Slowly add the milk and continue beating the mixture.

5. Finally, put the mixture back in the saucepan and keep beating on medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

6. Once the mixture thickens, put it in the cooked and cooled pie crust and refrigerate.

Putting it together:
1. After the you have combined the cream and the crust and have left it to refrigerate for about 30 minutes, you should get out the strawberries!

2. Thinly slice the strawberries and decorate the tart.

* At this point, you may add a pinch of black pepper to the strawberries or sugar, depending on whether you like tang or sweets. Or you can simply leave it be!

THE INSIDE SCOOP:

Don't let the apparent complexity of this recipe fool you; it is far easier than it looks. In fact, the hardest part might have been keeping ourselves from eating all the strawberries before they even got on the tart. Everything else was simple.

Eleni cut her strawberries into thinner slices to achieve a more polished look. Gargoyle photo by Eleni Yannelis (click to enlarge)

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Nikita, for one, was extremely dubious and even a little worried when Eleni sent her a recipe entirely in French with measurements listed in grams and vague instructions to "Google translate it."

Converting from grams to cups was admittedly a pain and the Google translation turned up odd phrases like, "Whisk the work two eggs," "Bake at Gas Mark 5," and, "Push the dough and go for it." Needless to say, it looked suspicious.

However, once we actually started making the tart, everything fell into place. The preparation took a little longer than expected, mostly because the custard took a while to cook over such low heat, but the end result was well worth it.

The tart was a perfect mixture of both sweet and sour, and crunchy and creamy. The crust was less like you'd expect to find in a traditional pie crust and more like a crumbly cookie crust, but it worked well, especially with its slight almond flavor. The only thing we might have done differently was use a little less custard in exchange for more strawberries, or maybe throw in other kinds of fruits in addition to the strawberries.

All in all though, the recipe was simple and successful. If you're in need of some motivation to get through these last few weeks of school, look no further!

Nikita's finished strawberry tart was a little sweet, a little sour, and very delicious. Gargoyle photo by Nikita Dutta (click to enlarge)

It was difficult to cut a neat slice out of the tart, but with some effort it worked out. Gargoyle photo by Nikita Dutta (click to enlarge)