Gypsy Tart

I have always been intrigued by this tart and just couldn’t get my head around the fact that the filling only included two ingredients. I just didn’t think that it was possible that the tart would set as they were no eggs or thickening agents such as cornflour or even plain flour to help it along.

As far as I was concerned it couldn’t possibly work! But….it DOES! The only thing that I can put this down to is the fact that the muscovado sugar and evaporated milk have to be beaten together for a considerable time before being poured into the pastry case to be baked. I presume some manner of chemical reaction takes place after all that beating, which results in a stabilisation of the two ingredients allowing it to “set” when baked in the oven.

Tradition has it, that the tart gets its name from the fact that it was first served to some hungry gipsy children during the First World War, by a woman who only had very basic ingredients in her house due to food rationing that was introduced because of the War. As with the origins of so many recipes, we cannot be absolutely certain of the accuracy of the stories that build up, but there is no disputing the fact that despite the richness of this tart it has remained popular over the years.

It is really important to ensure that you use dark brown muscovado sugar as substitutes will not create the same effect.

This is sweet… VERY sweet and I recommend serving it in thin enough slivers, but it does taste delicious and looks very beautiful when it comes out of the oven; with its gilt like surface which gives way to a dark brown fudgy centre when you cut in to it.

 

Some recipes that I came across when researching this particular tart, use sweetened condensed milk instead of the evaporated milk. I imagine that the finished tart must be shockingly sweet. The recipe I give here is for the version using evaporated milk.      

Ingredients:

Pastry:
200g plain flour

1tblsp icing sugar

120g butter, chilled and diced

1 large egg yolk

1-2tblsp water

Filling:

200g dark brown muscovado sugar

200g evaporated milk

 

Method:

Pastry:
1. Sift the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Rub in the diced butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and sprinkle in the water and using a fork, or your hands mix until the mixture comes together to form a dough.

2. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work-surface and knead briefly and shape into a ball. Wrap the dough in cling-film and place in the fridge for about half an hour to rest.

Blind-bake pastry:

3. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Grease a 5cm deep, 23cm round fluted tart tin (with a removable base) with a little butter. Using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry dough in a circle large enough to fit into the prepared tart tin and to a thickness of about 4mm. Use to line the bottom and sides of the prepared tin. Cover the pastry with a sheet of crumple non-stick baking parchment and then fill with baking beans. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and baking beans and then bake for a further 5 minutes. Any pastry off-cuts can be used to cut out shapes to decorate the pie or, as would traditionally be the case to make a lattice pastry topping for the tart.

4. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool down slightly while you make the filling.

Filling:

5. Put the muscovado sugar and evaporated milk into a large bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat together for 10 minutes at a high speed until the mixture has slightly increased in volume and is a creamy caramel colour. Carefully pour into the prepared pastry case and bake in the pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes until the surface is set. Remove from the oven… It may still have a slight wobble, but the tart will continue cooking as it cools, so this is perfectly normal. Allow to cool in the tin. Serve at room temperature with a dollop of crème fraîche if liked. 

Serves 6-8.     

Preserved Lemons

The supermarkets and grocery stores are full of citrus fruits at this time of year. As I have mentioned many times before, lemons are, in my opinion, an essential ingredient for any cook. A couple of squeezes of fresh lemon juice will perk up any savoury dish and it also has a wide range of uses in baking and sweet dishes. As you can see, I am quite a fan of the humble lemon!

Preserved lemons are used in many Moroccan dishes, most famously tagines, where their sour pungency cuts through the richness of other ingredients used. Many recipes for preserves lemons employ a method whereby the lemons are preserved in salt and vinegar. Whilst these are delicious, the saltiness can sometimes linger, even when the lemons have been rinsed beforehand and they can skew the flavour balance of the recipes in which they are used.

 

This recipe for preserving lemons avoids that problem as no salt is used, but rather the lemons are preserved in a light sugar syrup with added spices and aromatics courtesy of the inclusion of coriander seeds, bay leaves and fresh chillies.

This is a really useful condiment to have in the kitchen cupboard and is incredibly easy to prepare.
 

Ingredients:

9 smallish sized lemons
1 litre water

300g granulated sugar

Juice of ½ lemon

4 bay leaves

1 long, thin red chilli pepper, quartered lengthways

1tsp coriander seeds
 

Method:

1. Wash the lemons and scrub them with a vegetable brush.
2. Put the whole lemons into a large saucepan with the water, sugar and lemon juice. Bring up to the boil and then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Simmer the lemons for half an hour.

3. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool.

4. When the lemons are cool enough to handle, remove from the syrup with a slotted spoon and using a sharp knife cut into quarters. Carefully remove any lemon pips that you come across and discard.

5. Pack the quartered lemons into a sterilised jar (1litre capacity) along with the chilli, coriander seeds and bay leaves.

6. Reheat the syrup and bring up to the boil. Allow to bubble away for 7-10 minutes until it has reduced by about a third. Strain into the jar containing the lemons. Seal the jars and when cool, store in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks before using. Once opened, refrigerate.

Makes 1 x 1lt jar.     

Treacle Tart

I might as well hold up my hands and declare straight away that this is a very sweet tart, but provided you get the balance right with the added lemon juice and lemon zest, it should have a slight bitter edge to it. This coupled with the moist, almost slightly chewy nature of the tart filling, makes it something which is irresistible.

Although called treacle tart, modern recipes do not actually use treacle but use golden syrup instead. Sometimes, to ring the changes I replace a tablespoon of the golden syrup with some black treacle which results in a tart that is darker in colour and with a richer almost malty flavour.
 

Some versions of this tart are shallower than the one that I present here, but I prefer a tart with a slightly deeper filling as I think that the pastry to filling ratio is more balanced. As usual I am not going to be dogmatic about this and ultimately I recommend that you bake the tart as you best like it.

I have used white breadcrumbs here, but I have also made versions using brown breadcrumbs. I find that breadcrumbs made from brown soda bread work extremely well and add a welcome nutty flavour and given that soda bread is almost the national bread of Ireland, it is something that I like to do when I have some soda bread hanging around.

Ingredients:

Pastry:
200g plain flour
1tblsp icing sugar
120g butter, chilled and diced

1 large egg yolk

1-2tblsp water

Filling:

450g golden syrup

½ tsp ground ginger

110g fresh breadcrumbs

1 large free-range egg, lightly whisked

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

3tblsp lemon juice

Method:

Pastry:
1. Sift the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Rub in the diced butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and sprinkle in the water and using a fork, or your hands mix until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
2. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work-surface and knead briefly and shape into a ball. Wrap the dough in cling-film and place in the fridge for about half an hour to rest.
Blind-bake pastry:

3. Preheat oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Grease a 5cm deep, 20cm round fluted tart tin (with a removable base) with a little butter. Using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry dough in a circle large enough to fit into the prepared tart tin and to a thickness of about 4mm. Use to line the bottom and sides of the prepared tin. Cover the pastry with a sheet of crumple non-stick baking parchment and then fill with baking beans. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and baking beans and then bake for a further 5 minutes. Any pastry off-cuts can be used to cut out shapes to decorate the pie or, as would traditionally be the case to make a lattice pastry topping for the tart.

4. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool down slightly while you make the filling.

Filling:

5. Reduce oven Temperature to 180C/ Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4.

6. Put the golden syrup, ground ginger in a small saucepan and heat through until warmed but not bubbling. Remove from heat and add in the breadcrumbs, egg and lemon juice and mix everything together thoroughly. Pour into the blind-baked pastry case and bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 25 minutes until golden brown and slightly risen.

7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin. I like to serve slices of this tart, still very slightly warm with some clotted cream or with a scoop of marmalade ice-cream.

 
Serves 6.

Lemon & Polenta Cookies

These are unusual little biscuits and whilst simple to make are a little different to the type of biscuit that I would normally bake.

I love anything lemon flavoured and many of the recipes that I prefer to cook and bake inevitably seem to include lemons. This recipe is based on one that I came across years ago in a magazine, but I have adapted it to include loads of lemon flavour by way of loads of finely grated lemon zest which I made using my trusted Microplane grater!

The yellow colour of the added polenta echoes the yellow of the lemons used in the recipe but also gives the finished biscuits an irresistible crunch when you bite into them. 

Although this may sound like a strange description, I would say that the polenta adds a short but almost grainy texture to the biscuits. If a smoother, almost shortbread-like texture is preferred I would suggest substituting the polenta for the same weight of semolina which gives a slightly different albeit equally delicious result.

 

I used a small fluted cookie cutter to cut out rounds of the biscuits from the rolled-out dough, but use any shaped cookie cutter that you like.

 

Initially I was going to leave the biscuits plain, but the lemon, bereft of its zest which was used to flavour the biscuit dough, was almost taunting me with the possibilities of the unused juice at its interior – so I used a little of the squeezed juice with some icing sugar to create a tart icing which I drizzled over the finished biscuits. You can of course leave them plain, but the lemon drizzle icing really does emphasize the lemon flavour of the biscuits and I would strongly recommend its use!

Other citrus fruits can be used instead of lemons and I have previously created a lovely version of this biscuit using pink grapefruit.

Ingredients:

200g butter, softened
150g caster sugar

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

4 egg yolks

300g plain flour, sifted

150g polenta (fine maize meal)
Icing:
50g icing sugar
2tsp lemon juice
 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/Fan Oven 180C/Gas Mark 6. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.
2. Place butter, sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat until light and creamy. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time making sure that each is well incorporated before adding the next.

3. Mix the flour and polenta together and then add to the creamed mixture and using a wooden spoon mix together to form a dough. Wrap the dough in cling-film and refrigerate for half an hour.

4. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work-surface until ½cm thick and cut out discs using a round 6mm cookie cutter. Lace these onto the parchment-lined trays, leaving space between each one and bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until a light golden colour. Allow to cool on wire racks and when cooled drizzle with a little lemon icing.
Icing:
5. Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together and drizzle over the biscuits with a small teaspoon.

Makes 24-30 biscuits.

      

Ginger & Almond Traybake

These biscuits are so quick to make and are incredibly delicious. If, like me, you are a fan of ginger, you will absolutely love them. The first time that I made them I was hooked and I have made them many times since. Everyone who has tasted these biscuits has begged me for the recipe, so here it is now!

Although I regularly use stem ginger preserved in syrup, here I use crystallized ginger which I chop into small little cubes. The smell of the warm, sweet spicy, ginger as these are baking is addictive. Try as I might, I find it impossible not to wolf down one as soon as they come out of the oven and before they have had a chance to cool down.

It’s hard to describe these biscuits; on one hand they have a slightly cake-like, chewy texture but they are also reminiscent of shortbread. Quite a lot of butter is used, but rather than make the biscuits greasy, it imparts the most wonderful rich buttery taste. Because of the large amount of butter, you do need to keep an eye on them whilst they are in the oven to ensure that they do not over-brown as this will only make the end product taste a little bitter. Remove them from the oven once they are golden brown.

 

The inclusion of chopped almonds is only something that I introduced fairly recently, but I think that the chopped nuts add that something extra and really make something that looks quite plain into a luxurious tasting treat.

 

There is very little more that I can say about these biscuits other than to recommend that you bake some!
 

Ingredients:

260g plain flour
220g caster sugar

125g crystallised ginger, coarsely chopped

75g blanched almonds, coarsely chopped

1 egg

185g butter, melted

To finish:

2tblsp caster sugar, to sprinkle

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C/Fan Oven 150C/Gas Mark 3. Line a 20cm x 30cm traybake tin with non-stick baking parchment.
2. Place the flour, caster sugar, chopped ginger and chopped almonds in a large bowl and mix together with a wooden spoon. Add in the beaten egg, followed by the melted butter and mix again to thoroughly combine everything. The mixture will be relatively soft.

3. Press this mixture into the parchment lined tin, smoothing it down evenly with the back of a metal spoon.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar. Allow to rest in the baking tin for 10 minutes and then remove. Cut into 16 even sized pieces and allow to finish cooling on a wire rack.

Makes 16.