Traditional Yorkshire Curd Tart

Well, you can take the girl out of Yorkshire but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the girl! One thing I do miss from my home county of Yorkshire is a Traditional Yorkshire Curd Tart, not something readily found outside the county boundaries. My husband used to buy fresh or frozen curds from the local farm shop and occasionally bake one but there are no such curds on the Isle of Skye. So I had to give it my best shot and make my own curds. So my recipe for Yorkshire Curd goes back to basics and demonstrates how to make curds, pastry and what to do with the left over buttermilk.

 

Traditional Yorkshire Curd Tart

Ingredients:
For the curds:

1 litre of Jersey Gold Top Milk
Juice of 1 lemon

For the Pastry:

175 g plain flour
85g butter, cubed
25g caster sugar
50ml cold water

For the filling:

175g fresh curds
115g caster sugar
85g currants
2 large eggs, beaten
zest of a lemon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
knob of butter, melted

Method:

For the curds:

Make the curds the day before, it doesn’t matter when, it is simply best to let them drain overnight in the fridge before you use them.

Take a large milk pan and gently heat the milk to a simmer.

When the milk has reached a gentle simmer, which is about 50c turn the the heat down low and add the lemon juice.

Stir the lemon juice in gently and you will see the curds starting to form. If you stir too briskly you will break the curds up. Once you have a good lump of curds and watery milk surrounding it, remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

Get a sieve or colander, line it with a clean tea towel or a piece of muslin and place it over a large bowl. When then the milk and curds have cooled strain the contents of the pan through the sieve. Place in the fridge overnight so all the liquid (whey) drains from the curds. You will end up with approximately 175g of fresh curds. Keep the left over liquid that has drained off, this is buttermilk and I’ll share a good Scotch Pancake recipe, also known as Drop Scones.

For the pastry:

To make this tart you’ll need a 8 inch loose bottomed tart tin.
Pre-heat the oven to 180c fan
To make the pastry put the flour, butter and sugar in a food processor and mix on full power until crumbly. Leave turned on and slowly add the water until the pastry forms a ball. You might not need all the water so go carefully.
Once a ball has formed, remove from the food processor and with your hands roll it into a tight ball. Wrap in cling film and pop it into the fridge for 10-15 minutes.

When it has chilled remove the cling film and roll out on a floured surface to a thickness just less than a £1 coin. Line the tin and prick the base with a fork.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

For the filling:

With a fork break up the fresh curds into small pieces in a mixing bowl.

Add all the other ingredients into the curds and mix together thoroughly.

Pour the filling into the pastry case, place in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. You may need to spin the tart around halfway through to get an even colour on the top.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before
removing from the tin.

And there you have it, a Traditional Yorkshire Curd Tart, make completely from scratch. Serves 8.