On Saturday some friends from school and I got together with our significant others for a nice dinner. At my somewhat joking suggestion, we had a Cuban theme to the get-together. My friends John and Cassie graciously hosted, and everyone brought a dish. Not surprising, I brought the dessert. We had chicken with flaming pineapple, beans and rice, a cucumber and avocado salad, the tropical rum tart, and mojitos. Everything was wonderful.
I decided that we should dress a little tropical for the dinner, although not required. We got Lucy dressed in a cute little flowered dress.
Here are a few other photos from the night:
Here is Katie and Dave making Mojitos. Katie made a pretty fantastic drink.
Here is Katie and Richard who will be tying the knot this July, yay!
And here is John and Dave bringing in the tart. Apparently Dave wasn’t enjoying the picture taking. And that is about when Lucy started getting fussy, so that is where the pictures stopped.
Here is the recipe for the tart:
I was looking through books trying to find a recipe that I thought would work for this dinner, and I couldn’t find anything just right. So, I decided to make up a recipe. I used the basic shortbread tart shell which I used in the tarte noire (I am going to add that to a basic recipe section on the site soon, so it will be easier to fine). Then I made a rum flavored pastry cream for the filling, and topped it with mangos and kiwis.
The Run Pastry Cream:
Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup corn starch
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons rum
Method:
Bring the two cups of milk to a boil. Meanwhile mix together the egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch in another sauce pan. Once the milk boils, add about 1/4 cup to the egg mixture to temper the eggs. Slowly add in the rest of the milk, stirring constantly. Once mixed together, put back onto the burner and boil for a minute or two until thick. Add the vanilla and the rum. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Because this recipe makes enough pastry cream for two tarts, I decided to split the cream in half and add rum to one and Chambord to the other. In the above picture the rum is on the left and the Chambord is on the right. I will come back to the Chambord cream in a bit.
After you add the vanilla and liquor, let sit for five minutes. Add the pieces of butter and whisk in. Put in the fridge to cool for 4 hours.
Once the cream is cooled, spoon the mixture into the baked and cooled tart shell. Smooth out with a spatula. Add fruit to the top. For the rum tart I cut up kiwi and mangoes.
To the Chambord tart I added fresh blackberries.
Me Tea and Lucy 
