Just so you know this makes a very soft/sticky dough, which makes it more difficult to work with. It is well worth the little bit of extra effort.

cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and make sure it is well blended. Add the salt and vanilla, mix until incorporated. Add the flour and almond meal, mix together until there are no more dry patches of flour.

Divide the dough into two equal disks and wrap well in plastic. Refrigerate for at least an hour. If you are only making one tart then freeze the other packet of dough for the next time you want a treat in a hurry.

Take one disk of dough out of the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes. This will soften the dough just enough so that it won’t crack when you are rolling it out.

I use a silpat and a piece of Vinyl to roll out my dough (or two sheets of wax paper), so that I don’t end up using too much flour. It also allows me to pick up the dough and put it in the freezer if need be. Roll it out until it is about 1/16″ thick and the right size to fit into a 9-inch tart pan.

If the dough is very sticky and will not easily peel off of the silpat, throw the silpat and dough right into the freezer for about 5 minutes.

When you remove the silpat/dough from the freezer you should be able to peel the dough easily.

Place the silpat/dough over the tart pan and gently peel the silpat away.

If the dough is frozen, give it a minute to become supple, then you will need to push the dough down into the pan, it might crack a bit, but don’t worry! You can see around the edges that mine did this and I just pressed it back together.

Using a knife or metal spatula trim off the excess dough from the pan.

Preheat your oven to 350° and place the tart pan in the freezer while you wait for the oven to heat up.

Once the oven is up to temperature, take the tart shell out of the freezer and line with foil.

Fill the foil with beans and/or pie weights. As you can see I use a combination. I find the metal pie weights help to bake the shell more evenly because they conduct heat, but they can be quite expensive so I’ve added some beans to the mix.

Bake the shell for 25 minutes with the pie weights. Lift the foil/weights out of the shell and continue baking until the tart shell is golden brown, about 10 more minutes.

Cool the shell on a cooling rack while you prepare the fillings for the tart.

Stir the chilled pastry cream to make it spreadable and add the zest, nutmeg and crème fraîche. Fill the tart shell with the pastry cream.

In a medium sauce pan bring to a boil 1/2 cup of the blueberries, the juice and sugar.

While vigorously whisking add the arrowroot slurry to the pot. Add the vanilla, lemon zest and salt. Continue to cook and whisk until the mixture is very thick and glossy, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Quickly fold in the fresh blueberries.

Quickly add the berries to the tart shell, on top of the pastry cream. Spread them into an even layer. Chill until set, about an hour.