Whisk egg yolk, cream, and vanilla together in bowl. Whisk the flour, powdered sugar, and salt until combined. Scatter chilled butter over top and quickly work pieces into the flour with your hands, until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, You want to keep the butter cold to get flaky crust, so work fast and handle the butter as little as possible. Add egg yolk mixture and toss with fork until dough just comes together. Use a bench scraper to push stray flour and dough together into the mass and fold it over onto itself to build layers. Once you have a fairly cohesive dough with some visible butter chunks, stop there.
Form dough into 6-inch disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour or better overnight.
Let chilled dough sit on counter to soften slightly, about 10 minutes. Roll dough into 11-inch circle on lightly floured counter. Loosely roll dough around rolling pin and gently unroll it onto 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom, letting excess dough hang over edge. Ease dough into pan by gently lifting edge of dough with your hand while pressing into corners and fluted sides of pan with your other hand. Run rolling pin over top of pan to remove any excess dough.
Wrap dough-lined pan loosely in plastic, place on large plate, and freeze until dough is chilled and firm, about 30 minutes.
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375ºF. Set dough-lined tart pan on baking sheet, line with double layer of aluminum foil or parchment, covering edges to prevent burning, and fill with pie weights or beans.
Bake until crust is golden brown and set, about 30 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Remove weights and foil and let crust cool.
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350ºF.