Tag: fruit

#142 Ballymaloe Fruit Tarts

As Grigson says in her entry for this recipe – “in no way are these English”. Seeing as they’re obviously Irish; a recipe from a lady called Myrtle Allen who lived/lives in Cork (I wonder if she’s related to Rachel Allen?), but came up with it in France, I’d be inclined to agree. However, as you’ll see if you make them, they seem quintessentially English – the whipped cream, the chewy ground almond base and, most importantly, the use of seasonal fruit. One fruit on my seasonal list for May is rhubarb. However, there’s no rhubarb recipe in the book, at least not specifically rhubarb. This seemed like the only opportunity to use it. You can of course use any fruit: “During the first part of the year, top them with chunks of lightly cooked pink rhubarb, next come gooseberries, then the wild possibilities of the full summer…”.

FYI1: If like me, you love rhubarb, don’t make a habit of eating too much of the green rhubarb as it causes kidney and bladder stones due to the oxalate contained in the green areas – it dissolves in the blood no problems but in large amounts precipitates once it’s been filtered by the kidneys.

FYI2: All of the pink forced rhubarb in Britain comes from West Yorkshire – the rhubarb triangle. It’s a triangle because all farms are located within the triangle that Leeds (my home town), Branford and Wakefield make up. Read about it here.


This is a very easy recipe; summery and light, just right to finish off the skate salad I had made. For the base you need ground almonds, caster sugar and lightly salted butter all in equal amounts. Griggers says 4 ounces of each, but I went for 2 ounces of each seeing as there was just me and Butters to feed. This made 12 little tarts.

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. Cream together the butter, sugar and almonds and place teaspoonfuls of the mixture into a small tart tin. Bake for 10 minutes, maybe more, maybe less; what happens is magical – the blobs of mixture spread out to form perfect little tart bases that are cooked once they are rimmed with golden brown. Take them out of the tins when they’ve cooled a little bit with a butter knife or a teaspoon and allow to cool and harden on a wire rack. Don’t leave them in there too long or they’ll stick to the tins. Now whisk some cream, and a little sugar if you like, and place a teaspoon of it in the tart case and some of the fruit on top. (For the rhubarb, I stewed it lightly with some sugar and a vanilla pod.)

#142 Ballymaloe Fruit Tarts – 7.5/10. Really simple and delicious. The base is chewy and the topping, light. Even if you don’t bake these sorts of things, have a go at these – you get a lot of return for little effort.

#63 Fruit Tea Loaf

The third bit of stodge I made for the little gathering at mine for my birthday. Tea loaves are great and very Yorkshire, but I’d not made one before – it’s extremely easy, in fact, if you’ve never baked or have some terrible affliction, like feet for hands or something, then you should try this. People don’t eat this kind of stuff any more, so many don’t like dried fruit for some reason. They are better left in an air tight container for a few days before scoffing (if you can last that long – I couldn’t). Always serve your tea loaf with butter spread generously over it, or as they do in Yorkshire – though non-Yorkshire folk never seem to believe me – a slice of cheese. Sorry for the shit picture, folks.



To produce a squidgy ingot of loveliness of your own, start off by mixing 12 ounces of mixed fruit with 4 ounces of dark brown sugar. I like the soft, moist molasses sugar that you get in boxes best. Pour over half a pint of strained, well-stewed Indian tea, I used Assam. Leave this mixture overnight, so that the syrupy tea is absorbed by the fruit. Next day, mix in 8 ounces of self-raising flour and an egg. Pour the mixture into a lined 9 inch loaf tin and bake for one hour at 180°C, then down the temperature down to 160°C for a final half hour. Like all baking check with a larding needle or a knife toward the end of cooking, in case of funny temperatures in weird ovens like my fan one.

#63 Fruit Tea Loaf – 9/10. Cheap and easy and delicious! I also seem to have converted people who don’t like raisins with this one. The molasses sugar and the tea make the cake moist and rich. A perfect little gem of a cake.