Tarting it up

The theme for the last Private Pie Club meeting was Great British Pies, as it was being held on the Tuesday of British Pie Week. I decided to do something North-Eastern, as I'm a Geordie girl who very much loves the North East.

I had a look through my local cookery books and found a recipe for a North Country Tart, which I thought sounded perfect. And if we ever do a "pie that describes you theme", this recipe would do for that also :)

The tart is basically a sweetcrust pastry base, with a layer of raspberry jam topped with a golden syrup, egg, sugar and coconut concoction. Why it is north country, I have no idea- The streets of Newcastle don't appear to be lined with native palm trees sprouting coconuts or raspberry jam, but never mind. 

I wanted to use some local ingredients, so I got myself down to Mmm Newcastle, and got a few other bits and pieces in the Grainger market also. I remember when the Grainger Market was a place that your grandma went to, and it was possibly the uncoolest place to be. Nowadays it's getting really quite vibrant, and i love being in there. It's so much cheaper for fruit and vegetables than supermarkets too. I just wish that it was open a bit later so i could nip in after work. Anyway, I got a jar of J.R. jams raspberry jam from there. I do love a jar of jam with a hat on!

 The recipe only asked for 2 tablespoons of jam, but to be honest the jam was so good that I went ahead and put pretty much the whole jar in. 

jammy goodness

Then after that, the gooey golden syrupy coconutty goodness went in....

The tart was starting to look good, but i felt it needed a bit of extra panache. All that expanse of topping with nothing to break it up... And I felt that some special British Pie Week decoration was in order. 

There was only a small sliver left at the end of the Pie Club meeting, and that was quickly snapped up by the bar staff, so I think it went down quite well. I did have a little bit of it, but then swiftly managed to get distracted by spilling my pint all over myself. 

And, if you want to get all North Country yourself, here is the recipe for a 12 inch tart dish:

Ingredients:

• 250g sweetcrust pastry. 
• 1 jar of JR Jams Raspberry jam
• 75g butter
• 37.5g caster sugar
• 1&1/2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 150g dessicated coconut
• 1&1/2 eggs, beaten.

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC (fan oven)
2. Line a tart tin with the sweetcrust pastry. Spread the jam onto the bottom of the tart.
3. In a saucepan, melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together until it has all gone lovely and gloopy. Take off the heat.
4. Stir the coconut and beaten egg into the syrup mixture.
5. Turn the mixture into the tart tin. Decorate with pastry offcuts and glaze with egg yolk, then put into the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the filling has set and the pastry is golden and crisp.