As a child, I used to gaze through the window of Skeltons bakery, and wish that I could afford a black currant tart. My mum would buy them now and again for a special occassion, but I only ever got the tiniest piece. In those days the man of the house got the major share of any meal. Dad would get half, mum would get a quarter, and my brother and I would share the remaining quarter. The tart was only the size of a saucer, and so you can imagine how small my piece was.
Now that we grow our own black currants, I can indulge in black currant tarts when ever we want. 😁
Ingredients
Sweet pastry
8oz plain flour
1.5 oz sugar
4oz butter
1 egg
1 dstsp of water
Blackcurrant filling
300g of black currants
150g sugar
1 heaped tbsp of corn flour
Water
Topping
Double cream
Method
1.Make sweet pastry as per normal pastry. Don’t put any extra water in it. You might need to knead it together.
2. Put it in the fridge to rest.
3. In a pan put the fruit, sugar, and 2 tbsp of water into a pan, over a gentle heat. Cook gently, stirring regularly, for 5 to 7 minutes. Some of the black currants will burst, releasing their juice.
4. Put the cornflour into a cup with 2 tablespoons of water. Stir until combined.
5. Pour cornflour mixture into the black currant mixture and cook for a couple of minutes whilst stirring. It will start off cloudy and then go glossy, and thicken slightly. Put to one side to cool.
6. Roll out the pastry and line a flan base, or individual tart cases. I made 9 individual ones. I filled mine with ceremic balls on baking parchment to cook them blind, which stopped the middle rising. You can use scrunched up foil instead if you don’t have balls. Cook at 200⁰C for about 10 to 15 minutes. Take out the ceremic balls, and bake for 5 minutes longer. The pastry should start to turn golden brown. If cooking as one base it might need slightly longer. Leave to cool.
7. Once the pastry and the filling are cool, gently spoon the black currant mixture into the base if eating soon. I kept my bases in a tin, my black currant mixture in a glass box in the fridge, and filled them as we ate them over a few of days. I didn’t want to risk the pastry going soggy.
8. Whisk the cream and top the tart. We piped the cream for a tart given to a neighbour, but just dollaped ours on. In the past I have spread the cream on a big tart with a knife, and used the back of a fork to make a nice pattern if family were coming. Store cream in the fridge if not topping straight away.
If you can’t be bothered to make sweet pastry, I have made a tart with a biscuit base before (made with crushed digestive biscuits and butter).
This makes a lovely dessert, and a special way to present your home grown black currants. I have also tried a custard topping when I haven’t had cream. I don’t think it is quite as nice or luxurious, but it is still tasty, and a bit cheaper.
Other ways to use your black currants are in a crumble, a pie, as compote, or in a cake. Blackcurrants are quite a strong taste and so in a crumble or pie I tend to stretch them by adding some apple.
A blackcurrant tart is something I can imagine me showing your recipe to my husband in the winter and him wanting to make, we will have the blackcurrants in the freezer and he likes cooking and likes to try new things.
Usually I just make a Summer pudding because we like those and it is a treat to have during the winter and spring, it also uses up bread if it is going stale, although we usually freeze our bread these days so have to think about purposely making sure there is extra bread to use.
My daughter has picked me a lot of blackcurrants so I,m going to give these tarts a try. Remember being young when I lived in Hull and seeing them in Fletchers window. They were a special treat when Dad was home from sea. Thank you for the recepie.