Rhubarb and custard tarts

Angled plate1 new

I love custard of any description. Whether it be Bird’s or Ambrosia’s Devon kind or fresh stuff poured over a crumble or a quivering baked version, I love custard. Sadly it has never reciprocated that love and everytime I’ve tried to make it, there have been problems. It’s split, ended up scrambled, been full of lumps and the packet version has resembled concrete. I’ve always thought if I wrote a book about my cooking exploits, it would be called ‘Custard is my Nemesis.’

Few things go better with custard than rhubarb so when I finally got my paws on some proper Yorkshire forced rhubarb for the first time this season (even though Mister North has been cooking up a storm with it for a while now this winter.) I decided that come hell or high water, this weekend would be the time that I tamed custard, even if it meant the kind of mayhem in the kitchen that accompanied the cartoon duo of the same name.

I’ve been eyeing Dan Lepard’s Bay Custard Tarts forever, even having cut the recipe out of the Guardian and kept it when it first appeared several years ago and thanks to the clear and foolproof instructions in Short and Sweet, I knew this was the place to start with custard, but decided to put a seasonal twist on it by layering the baked custard with a topping of tangy rhubarb curd, partly because it would no doubt be delicious, but because it might hide a custard malfunction…

I made the tart cases from scratch using Dan’s sweet shortcrust recipe and tips on pastry handling. The first time I made pastry it was exceptionally good and I wondered why people worry about it, but every subsequent time has been a mess of varying levels. I decided to try and teach myself better pastry skills while I was mastering custard, but you could just use shop bought if that’s easier. But do follow Dan’s tip to only blind bake the cases for 15 minutes and undercook them slightly to allow the custard to ‘stick’

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Lemon Cupcakes

As you probably all know, cupcakes are the sweet treat du jour so when I was invited out for a rather girlie teaparty this Sunday, it seemed like the perfect excuse to use the copy of The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook I was given for Christmas since this bakery is one of the hottest cupcake spots in London.

I flipped through this stylish little number several times for inspiration before deciding that since there would be many other sweetmeats at the tea party, I would go for lemon cupcakes as hopefully the citrus would be sharp and cleansing after tonnes of sugar. Plus I had accumulated a lot of lemons in the fruit bowl…

The recipe seemed straightforward, except that it calls for an electric mixer or whisk to make the batter. I don’t usually bake this way, so I was a little bit apprehensive about how easy this would be since I only have the whisk attachment to my handblender. I feared it would make more of a mess (and washing-up!) than the usual hand made method, but I figured there was only one way to find out!

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Second-degree Burns

Two chieftains o’ the pudding-race

Last night I had the pleasure of hosting a Burns’ Supper for a couple of friends. It was a very last-minute affair, and was never intended as a faithful rendition of the rituals associated with celebrating the bard. More an excuse to get together with some mates and enjoy some good malts with a side order of offal and tubers… Read more

Swedish Apple Cake

The weather may have warmed up in the past day or so, but it is still cold enough to justify a delicious helping of sticky sweet carbs which means Allegra McEvedy’s G2 Recipe yesterday for Swedish Apple Cake leapt out at me immediately, especially as I had some apples needing eaten up and it promised to take only 15 minutes to prepare. The fact she suggests using a deep frying pan instead of a cake tin really appealed as it sounded like a real time saver… Read more