Shortcrust pastry

• Grease a large tart tin (28cm) with butter, then sprinkle with a tablespoon of  sugar. Sift the flour and almonds and knead together with all the other ingredients to form a dough.
• Roll out the dough between two pieces of greaseproof paper to a thickness of about 4mm. Chill the thin dough until it is hard.
• Preheat oven to 180°C. Remove the dough from the fridge, working quickly, loosen the chilled dough from both pieces of greaseproof paper and invert over the tart tin. Gently press in, cutting carefully away excess dough. Place greaseproof paper on the dough, cover with baking beans and bake blind for 15 - 20 minutes. Carefully remove blind baking materials, allow dough to cool well. 

Mascarpone-vanilla cream

• Mix some cold milk with cornflour and flour. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod, put the pod and its seeds into a saucepan with the remaining milk, bring to the boil.
• Add the cold milk mixed with the cornflour and flour to the pan and return to the boil, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens. Finally add the egg-sugar mixture and cook gently for approx 1-2 mins. Remove from the heat and chill the cream.
• Remove the seeds from the pomegranates, remove the white flesh. Marinate seeds with honey and vodka.

Tart filling

• When the vanilla cream is cold, using an electric mixer, whisk with the mascarpone until creamy. Soak the gelatine in cold water, then melt in a small saucepan with a little water (enough to just cover the bottom of the pan).
• Add gelatine to the vanilla mascarpone cream and finish mixing. Pour into the cold tart. Garnish with marinated pomegranate seeds, chill well before serving.
• Photo gallery of the preparation.