I love strawberry season. If anything will prompt me to turn on the oven at the start of a June heatwave, it’s probably a favorite strawberry recipe. Over the years, I’ve tried various historical recipes for tangy strawberry preserves, a refreshing strawberry water beverage, and chilled snow cream served with strawberries. Yesterday morning, before it got too hot, I tried my hand at some strawberry tarts.

The Recipe

Tartes of strawberryes
Season your strawberryes with sugar a very little Sinamon a
litle ginger and so couer them with a couer and you must lay vpon
the couer a morsell of sweete butter rosewater and Sugar
you may ice the couer if you will you must make your ice with
the white of an egge beaten and rosewater and Sugar
(British Library, Add MS 28319, f. 16r)

This recipe for “Tartes of strawberryes” is from an early seventeenth-century manuscript cookbook now held at the British Library — Add MS 28319.* Culinary recipes and instructions for serving various courses fill the twenty leaves of this short manuscript this is written in a small, regular secretary hand. Earlier this summer, I had a chance to travel to the British Library and transcribe the entire manuscript (thanks to a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society). As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t been in the kitchen much this year. I’ve been at my desk writing about the recipes I’ve developed for my new book Shakespeare in the Kitchen (which will be out next year in this series) and, lately, I’ve been back in the library gathering more material for this book and my ongoing projects.  So I was even more eager to spend a morning in the kitchen engaging with this manuscript in a different way — cooking it.

* Although manuscripts are not currently available through the British Library catalog due to the cyberattack, a 2020 post on their medieval manuscripts blog includes a discussion of this cookbook.

 

Strawberries only appear twice in this manuscript — as the filling of these closed tarts and as a seasoning for stewed mullet where gooseberries or barberries might also add a sharp, acidic flavor (9v). The menus that begin the manuscript, however, show how central tarts were to the contemporary style of dining. Tarts like these would be served in the second spread of various dishes at dinner (the large midday meal) and supper (the lighter evening meal) alongside meat, vegetable, and fish dishes depending on the season or fish-day constraints (2r-3r). There are seventeen tart recipes in the cookbook, some lidded and some open-faced, that would allow a cook to serve a variety of tasty tarts throughout the year (15r-16r). Seasoned with spicy ginger and warm cinnamon, these strawberry tarts would hold their own against the strong flavors of venison, shrimp, gingerbread, duck, or fritters that might also have been served on the same table.

Updated Recipe

Makes about 20 tarts.** 

I tested these tarts with this pastry recipe and I have copied it into the instructions below. Feel free to use an historical or modern pastry recipe of your choice.

Pastry
1 3/4  cup flour (210 grams, 1/2 lb)
1 Tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter (113 grams, 8 Tablespoons, 1/4 lb)
1 egg
4 Tablespoons water (1/4 cup, added a spoonful at a time)

Filling
2 cups strawberries, chopped (400 grams)
1/4 cup sugar (50 grams)
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping***
2 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon rosewater
1 Tablespoon sugar

Preheat the oven to 425 F (220 C). Take out the butter for the topping to give it time to come to room temperature.

Make the pastry. Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Stir to combine. Chop the butter into small pieces. Work the butter into the flour mix until a fine meal forms. Add the egg. Add the water one tablespoon at a time. Using your hands and/or a spoon, work the mix until it holds its shape as a ball. It will still feel dry to the touch.

While the pastry rests in the fridge or at a cool room temperature, remove the stems from your strawberries and cut them into small pieces (approximately 1/2 in or 1 cm). Season the chopped strawberries with sugar, ginger, and cinnamon.

In a small bowl, stir the room-temperature butter and rosewater with a fork so that the whipped butter it is well-combined and ready to spread.

Roll out the pastry. Using a pastry cutter or drinking glass, cut circles. I used a 2 5/8 in (68 mm) pastry cutter to make nice little tarts. Make sure you have an even number of circles so that you have bottoms and lids.

Grease your pan. Lay out the bottom pieces. I used my handy mince pie pan to make a batch of 12. You can easily make these pies on a baking sheet by shaping the top piece of pastry over a mound of seasoned strawberries. (See note about extra filling below.**)

Fill each pie with seasoned strawberries. Place a lid on each pie. Push down the edges of the pastry to seal. Coat the lids with the butter and rosewater mixture. Sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake the tarts for 15 minutes until golden brown. (Check them at 10 minutes and see how they’re faring.)

Let the pies cool in their pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack or serving plate. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The Results

When I think of a strawberry tart, I usually think of an open-faced dessert, with an abundance of glistening strawberries and crisp, fluted pastry. (Or I think about how I love to add strawberries to these very rustic rhubarb tarts.) Instead, these strawberry tarts show how warming spices such as ginger and cinnamon — spices I’m more used to pairing with apples — compliment the bright sharpness of summer strawberries. The ginger especially shines in this recipe as it pairs with the rich pastry and the soft, tart strawberries. It’s a perfect recipe for strawberry season.

**Extra Filling

I made one tart pan full of 12 tarts. By the time these came out of the oven, my kitchen was getting incredibly hot and I quickly shaped the remaining pastry into a (delicious) rustic galette filled with the remaining seasoned strawberries. I believe I had enough of everything to make about 8 more lidded tarts. If you only want to make a dozen tarts, I believe half the seasoned strawberry fulling will suffice, but you will need more than half the dough and the recipe above is not easy to divide as it contains a whole egg.

*** Rosewater butter topping update
When Lisa Smith tried this recipe the week it was posted, she found that the rosewater overpowered the spices in the tarts. This was not my experience, but rosewater strength varies across brands so do keep this in mind as you prepare these tarts! Thanks again for baking and sharing your experience, Lisa!!