Rhubarb and Custard Tart with Cream Cheese topping - yes please!!

Growing up in England Rhubarb and Custard used to be a regular pudding in spring - and I just loved my stewed rhubarb and custard so imagine my delight when my friend and brilliant food blogger Christina at Christina's Cucina posted a recipe for Rhubarb and Custard Bars from Taste of Home on her Facebook page - I knew I had to make it. I ended up making the recipe three times as I halved the size of the Taste of Home RECIPE and made it in a 9" tart pan - it was good, very creamy and delicious but I wanted more custard - so I made it in the same size pan but a deeper one - and that was really good too but I still needed more custard so then I went for a 7.5" x 2" deep pan, and decided to use my Easy Peasy crust instead of the very simple crust in the original recipe which indeed was very simple, and very very good, but I found it hard to squush into the tart pan - it kept sticking to my hands and coming back off the pan so I did this crust instead - it's lovely and again a no roll out crust - you squush this one into the pan too.

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST:

Pre heat oven to 325F
Enough for one tart case 9” shallow or my 7.5 x 2" deep pie pan.

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour 

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar 

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD 

1 large egg yolk

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl. 

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingreds., and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

 3. Add egg yolk and blend and squush carefully until the dough sticks together. This may take a little time but despair not it will come together - just don't let it warm up - pie crusts pastry should always be kept as cold as possible to make it flaky and divine. 

4. Tear dough into big chunks…..place strategically in pie pan and start squushing to a create a smooth even covering of the entire pan…the beauty of this crust is that it does NOT shrink at all…it stays put…good crust!!...and it tastes like a really good shortbread…yum!!

5. Bob into the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

6. Remove from the fridge and prick the pastry all over with a fork - this is to prevent bubbles forming when you bake. Next I lined the pastry with parchment paper and weighed it down with black eyed peas - you can use beans or pie weights but don't go down the road of popcorn as I did once - you can guess at those results.

6. Bake for about 15 minutes, remove from the oven, genteely lift the paper and weight from the shell and bob pastry back into the oven for about another 15 minutes - don't worry when you take the weights out if the pastry looks soggy and sad - it will improve by the next time you take it out of the oven :))

Keep your eyes peeled - you want the crust to be evenly baked but not browned. Keep your oven on at 325F.

Now assemble your pie ingredients:

4.5oz/2 1/2 cups thinly sliced rhubarb
 

6oz/ scant 3/4 cup of sugar
 

6 fl oz/ 3/4 cup heavy/double cream
 

3 medium sized eggs
 

1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract
 

4 tablespoons white flour
 

1. Whisk flour and sugar together
 

2. Add eggs and whisk then add the cream and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
 

3. Spread the rhubarb evenly on the bottom of the pie crust:

4. Gently pour the custard over - you can fill the crust right the way up, this filling does not expand much:

5. Bob into your pre heated 325F oven and bake for about 45mins - I over baked mine becaue I wanted it to be completely cooked and it made the crust a little too brown and the filling a little too hard - so if it wobbles a bit in the middle that's OK if you don't mind it being a bit harder to cut and maybe even a bit runny - it tastes really good that way!

The top of the tart wasn't too attractive but no worries as we're going to cover it with lovely creamy cream cheese sweetness. So allow the tart to cool completely before adding this deliciousness to the top of your pie:

TOPPING: 

3oz cream cheese
 

1 1/2 ozs / scant 1/4 cup of sugar

2 fl oz/ 1/4 cup heavy/double cream whipped to stiff

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract
 

1. Beat the cream cheese until smooth
 

2. Add sugar and liquids and beat until smooth.
 

3. Fold in the whipped cream until smooth:

4. Then happily dollop atop your cooled tart:

This third tart did cut beautifully but it was just a tad too well baked - tasted great though!!

This pic below of the second tart I made which was shallower - I didn't bake it too long and as you can see it was still a bit soft at the middle - despite looking a bit soggy it did taste really good so I do suggest baking the tart less rather than more:

A close up of the lovely easy peasy tart crust - good and sturdy, reliable and very tasty like good shortbread.

This might be really good made with strawberries instead of rhubarb or with strawbs. and rhubarb, peaches, gooseberries, apricots or raspberries - I want to try them all!

This recipe is part of the The Great British Rhubarb Recipe Round Up at Lavender and Lovage and The Farmersgirl Kitchen

 

The poppies, lupines and iris have just started blooming in my neck of the Maine woods - they are such a beautiful sight to behold each late spring:

Lupine leaves in the dewy air

So Happy Baking everyone - if you make this tart please feel free to post pics of such on my FACEBOOK PAGE!

If you are interested in the background fabrics in these pictures you can find them as print on demand fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper and wall decals in my online
SPOONFLOWER SHOP 

Here comes the Spotted Dog, although there is another name..

Ooooohhhhh...when the weather outside is frightful and the wood stove is so delightful, consider making yourself a "Spotted Dog" or as some say "Spotted Dick"...dick being an old fashioned English word for pudding!!...as you can see from the title of this post I prefer dog...perhaps because I indeed do have a spotted dog!!
SPOTTED DOG RECIPE
Ingredients:
6oz/1 1/4 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest of one lemon (preferably organic)
juice of 1/2 lemon
6oz/ 3/4 cup sugar
6oz/ 3/4 cup plump raisins
2oz/ 3/4 cup shredded suet (yes I know in the mincemeat recipe I mentioned how grim it was to shred suet BUT I have to admit I thought it was grim but hadn't actually done it..I bought some nice suet from Farmers Fare from local cows at Aldermere Farm and tried my hand and found it was somewhat akin to shredding soft candlewax...not gruesome at all really plus I tried one recipe with butter and suet and it came out a lot stodgier...ie dense and a bit too carby and sticky)
2 large eggs whisked together
3 fl oz/1/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract/essence and 1 of cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

Before you get going on the recipe you will need to find yourself a 3 cup (24 fl oz) basin or bowl that you can steam. Then find a double boiler, or steamer, that takes the depth of bowl with a fitted lid not touching the top of the bowl!! Put the empty bowl into the top of the boiler and fill with water until it comes to about 3/4 way up the side of the bowl, take the empty bowl back out, put the lid on and start the heat 'til the water is doing a nice rolling boil. Then butter well the inside of your cute little bowl. Set aside. Then cut out a round of parchment big enough to fit the top of the bowl and down the sides about 3/4", butter this parchment...then also cut out a round of aluminium foil the same size....now you're ready....off we go!!
In the meantime make your 'pud'
1. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt, cardamom, nutmeg and baking powder.
2. Rub the shredded suet into the flour mix until it resembles even sand, you ca also do this by whisking a couple of separate times in a food processor.
3. Stir in the zest, raisins and sugar.
4. Stir in the lemon juice, then the eggs, then the vanilla and then the milk.
5. Bob's your Uncle...you have the thing you see below...a nice thick batter!!

Now put all your delicious batter into your buttered bowl, cover with the round of parchment, then with foil and then put a couple of elastic bands around the top edge of the bowl to make the parchment and foil somewhat airtight, THEN use string to tie like a package, this really helps you retrieve the bowl from the pot without burning the crap out of your fingers!!!

THUS...your pud should look like this ready to bobbed into it's steam bath...below...

...and here we go, put the lid on and boil that little 'puppy'(ha ha) for about 2 hours!! Check on the water occasionally and make sure it doesn't get low...refill with boiling water to keep the boil going. About 20 minutes before your 2 hours is up start to make the custard as below...the dog and the custard should both be almost hot when served.

TA DAH!!!! Here's the pud after it has sat for about 10 minutes to settle, untie the string, uncover the pud and invert onto a plate...please be aware that when you first uncover the pud it may well look somewhat uncooked, like a dumpling, but this is because this part, the flat bottom, of the pud can get a bit damp during the long steaming...just wait until you un-bowl it though...looks lovely doesn't it, I think it looks like a mold for a hat!!??

THIN CUSTARD, CREME ANGLAISE, POURING CUSTARD, CUSTARD SAUCE, ANLANN CUSTAIRD
from "Irish Traditional Food" by Theodora FitzGibbon, a goodly trusty cookbook
1 heaped tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg and 1 egg yolk whisked together
10 fl oz/ 1 1/4 cups whole milk

1. Beat together the egg, egg yolk, vanilla and sugar in a bowl.
2. Have another double boiler on the go.
3. Heat the milk to almost boiling in the top part of the double boiler but on the stove top to make it go faster.
4. Stir a little of the hot milk into the egg mix and then a bit more to temper the temperature.
5. Then put the top part of the double boiler back over the bottom and the boiling water and whisk the egg and milk mix into the rest of the milk
6. Do not leave the custard alone now until it is finished or it will curdle whilst you are not looking and you will have to start again. SO stir and stir and stir with a wooden spoon until it starts to thicken and coats the back of the spoon as in the picture below...you take the spoon out of the custard, turn the spoon over, run your finger through the custard and if the line doesn't fill back in it is ready, don't let it cook too long or get too hot as the eggs will start to turn into scrambled eggs and the sauce will be grainy.....take off the heat immediately and continue to stir.

Pour custard into a heat proof vessel as below...

Spoon your pud out and cover with lashings of hot custard and consume!!! YUM, tastes a lot like a very lightly flavoured and weighted Christmas Pudding...it does stick to your ribs but not quite so tenatiously!! Happy steaming...we are lucky to have a good old wood burning stove as we can steam all day long on this little purring darling and not waste one extra calorie of energy!!

And here is my spotted dog, little Eleanor, not so spotty in this picture but how could I resist sharing with you Ellie resting with her oatmeal rabbit!!

Bakewell Tart...it's certainly not cake but is it a pudding, tart or pie?

In typical inimitable British style this dessert recipe is called a pudding because ALL Brit desserts come under the title of ‘pudding’ and this particular one, from the beautiful little northern town of Bakewell, is meant to be consumed after the evening meal, as the ‘pudding’ course, and not for tea in the afternoon when it would indeed be called a tart or pie. Are you confused yet? In texture this pie is somewhat akin to a pecan pie without the nuts. It is dense and moist and actually quite light in flavour. It improves greatly with a day of ‘maturing’ at room temperature, and I highly recommend this, in a trusty metal cake tin and is always eaten cool but not cold (definitely not out of the fridge!!!...bad form I say!!). It is not fussy or elegant but it is a very satisfying Farmhouse recipe especially if you like almond flavoured delights as I do. Here we go with the recipe:

Pate Brisee for the crust...a very reliable and crisp version which keeps well.

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons sugar

1 stick very cold butter, grated on a box grater

1/8 to 1/4 cup of very cold water

Mix flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Add grated butter ( I do all my pastry by hand so grating the butter helps keep things cool for better pastry...of course you can choose to do this in a food processor)....rub the butter into the flour mix until it resembles coarse meal then quickly add in the water by dribbles, I mix with a fork to keep everything cool, and when you think it is wet enough, and it’s always less than you think, quickly and gently ‘sqwoosh’ pastry together until you have a cohesive lump. Put into the fridge for, at the very least, half an hour and preferably longer, to ‘rest’. We all need a rest after this!

Take the pastry out of the fridge and let it warm up slightly before rolling out and lining a glass pie dish 9" diameter. Put back in fridge until ready to be filled.

The filling:

Raspberry jam preferably, strawberry second, anything else you choose third.

4 oz butter melted and slightly cooled

4 oz sugar

4oz roasted and ground almonds...if you are doing the roasting and grinding yourself let the almonds cool COMPLETELY, to get rid of any moisture, before you grind them in a coffee or spice grinder, and grind with equal amounts of the sugar so the mixture doesn’t get sticky.

4 egg yolks

3 egg whites whipped to soft peaks

½ teaspoon almond extract...have you tried the almond extract by ‘Simply organics’, it is the best I have ever tasted.

Putting it all together:

1. Take piecase out of fridge and spread your chosen jam over the bottom...I like just a schmear, others like more...traditionally it is less rather than more.

2. Mix melted butter, almond extract and ground almonds and sugar together til well blended, add egg yolks and blend til smooth and finally add the beaten egg whites gently in batches so as not to deflate the bubbles.

3. Spread mixture over the jam and make sure the jam is sealed around the edges or else it will bubble out in baking.

4. Bake in the middle of a 350 degree oven for about half an hour until the filling is completely set but be careful not to burn the pastry.

Ta dah!! You have yourself a good northern English classic recipe that has been around for hundred’s of years and is still made prolifically in it’s home county of Derbyshire.

Happy Baking...let me know how it comes out! Check this bakewell link out for more info!