Once more it’s time to venture into the highly-terrifying world of traditional recipes. As I said recently, when I wrote about Kleftiko, when you tackle a traditional recipe you can guarantee someone will always pop up and rubbish one of your ingredients or techniques as anathema to their grandmother’s way of doing things. But given that I’m half-Yorkshire genetically, I’m willing to take them on. (Yes, I use nutmeg! Sue me!)
Curd tarts were traditionally made to use up left-over curds from the cheese-making process and so were popular in cheese-making areas such as Somerset, Leicestershire and Yorkshire. In particular they were baked around Whitsuntide, a period of feasting and festivals that happened to coincide with a time of year when cows produced excess milk. It was said that you could pave Melton Mowbray with curd tarts at Whitsuntide! They are still a speciality in Yorkshire and I remember seeing them in bakers when I went to visit my Grandma as a child (although to be honest, we usually plumped for a chocolate éclair).
Special occasion tarts would be made with ‘firstings’ or ‘biestyn’ milk, which is colostrum, the milk produced when a cow has just given birth. Yellow and as thick as double cream, it’s designed to empty out the digestive tracts of newborns of all the gunk they’ve ingested before and during birth (sorry if you’re eating). It’s also highly nutritious and full of antibodies. Funnily enough, my local Budgens seemed to be all out of biestyn and so I went for normal blue-top milk to make my curds.
Ingredients
1.2 litres of full-cream milk
2 lemons (have a spare in case it takes more lemon juice to curdle the milk)
140g plain flour
A large pinch of baking powder
85g butter
1 tsp caster sugar
50g butter
50g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
25g currants
Grated nutmeg
1 tsp rose water
To make the curds for your tart, heat up 1.2 litres of full-cream milk until it starts to boil (but catch it before it goes crazy). Add the juice of one lemon and turn the heat down; the milk should start to curdle.
If it doesn’t, try adding some more lemon juice. When you have curds floating in watery whey, scoop them into a clean tea-towel or muslin into a colander and leave them to drain overnight.
Preheat your oven to 180˚C / 160˚C fan-assisted / Gas Mark 4. To make the pastry, mix the flour, baking powder, butter and caster sugar in a food mixer until it resembles very fine breadcrumbs. Tip it into a large bowl, make a well in the centre and add enough cold water to make a smooth dough. Knead it gently and then wrap the ball of dough in clingfilm and put it into the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
To make the tart filling, beat the butter and caster sugar until soft and then add the eggs to combine. Break up the curds and add them to the mixture; mix them in well so that there are no big lumpy bits. Add the currants, nutmeg and rose water and mix through.
Roll out the pastry and line a greased 20cm pie dish that’s about one inch deep. Spread the curd mixture over the base of the tart and bake it for about 40 minutes until the filling is set and slightly browned. Serve warm or cold, in slices.
Because I used home-made fresh cheese to make this tart I am sharing it with this month’s Cheese, Please! Challenge, hosted by me here.
And because this month’s theme over at Bloggers Around the World is Great Britain, I’m sharing it there too.
Fromage Homage 
I must try this at some point, it sounds great. 🙂
If you like baked egg custards, you’ll like it, although it’s a bit different.
I love baked egg custards. I must try it now! 🙂
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ok would love to try this – out of Biestyn too though, and have just succumbed to the challenge of making Swedish shrove tuesday buns…the things we do to avoid work..
Mmmm, buns sound good 🙂
Oh yum, that looks good. My mum (also a Yorkshirewoman) used to make them sometimes. Haven’t had one for years …
Last one I saw was in a bakery in Whitby and they were girt big square slabs of it, yum.
Did you go to the Magpie fish n chippy?
In all my years visiting there, I never went 😦 Did you ever go to the smokehouse up the hill? That was my favourite. Proper smoked kippers…yum.
Funnily enough neither did I. It’s donkey’s since I was there – I used to live on the North Yorks Moors but eeh, that was when I were a lass. I defrosted the freezer the other day and found SIX kippers lurking. Maybe some pate is in order …
Great post! I’m trying to find a recipe that uses home made curd cheese, your recipe is great, bookmarked. 🙂
Any recipe that calls for ricotta-esque cheeses, it would work. This was a very nice tart, I seem to have eaten it all…
That happens to me all the time! As in, I seem to have eaten all of that tart / cake / ? …
Wow! You make it all look so easy!!
Making the curd was easy. What you can’t tell from the photo is how dreadful my pastry was 😉
Ha ha!
Yum yum and more yum!
🙂
Nutmeg and rose water? – you and your fancy, exotic ingredients! Although I’ve lived in Yorkshire for the best part of 25 years now, I’ve yet to be tempted into trying a curd tart – looks far too close to a custard tart for my liking… which probably means my kids would really like it, so maybe I should try making one, just once mind.
Ah, you see, I love a custard tart! These are similar but a bit more savoury-tasting – go on, give it a go! The nutmeg is apparently a controversial ingredient but the rosewater is traditional (the debate is over whether it was introduced during the Roman occupation or from the Conquests). And, yes, the kids gobbled it back 🙂
Wish I was there to eat this with you, it looks fantastic! Off to go buy lots and lots of milk so I can play along this month 🙂
Hurray! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with 🙂
Luckily I decided to read this post before dinner. 🙂 No worries!
The recipe sounds like a lot of fun with all the curdling. Thank you for joining Bloggers Around the World. Great, something traditional again. So, what can we say about any ingredient or technique … no, just joking.
Pleasure to join in – it’s not often I manage to get the right country!
Aha, curd tart! I have gone a little bit Fresh cheese crazy, and have been trying to find things to put them in. I was thinking of the freezer too, but this could also work well!
Yummo – this sounds delicious. Who could resist a cheesey dessert.
Exactly! No need to argue about what comes first – the cheese or the pudding. Eat both at the same time 🙂
How delicious and an interesting post too. I had my first curd tart only a couple of years or so ago when I was visiting York and they really are good. I’ve made my own subsequently, albeit with a chocolate pastry base 😉
They are lovely. I’d love to go back up north and have a really big slab; mine was a bit on the measly side. Chocolate pastry base sounds divine, although the no-nutmeg-purists would probably have you burnt at the stake for it 😉
I love the look of this, will have to give it a try
Let me know what you think if you do. It’s surprisingly easy to make and I think has a lovely taste – part sweet, part savoury.
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