Week 6 - A Tartys of Raspberries & Cream

Voice of experience here …. Be careful not to overcook this pie or else the “custard” will set too firm. for the same reason, this pie is best served hot or warm.

Voice of experience here …. Be careful not to overcook this pie or else the “custard” will set too firm. for the same reason, this pie is best served hot or warm.

Welcome to the final week of the 2020 Great Colonial Cook Off. Thanks to each and every one of you, it’s been our most successful Cook Off ever, with a record setting number of entries and our highest social media metrics in five years. So whether you tried one recipe or cooked them all, shared your photos and lessons learned, or helped spread the word by sharing a Colony post with your Facebook friends, we are super grateful.

Wholesome to Eat and in Measure Most Abundant

It’s wild berry season here in Newfoundland (HORRAY!!!!) and many of us are spending every spare moment out on the barrens and bogs or in the woods filling our buckets with free fruit. Based on surviving documents, the first Europeans to settle in Ferryland were also pretty darn excited by all the wild fruit they found. In a letter to George Calvert dated 17 August, 1622, Edward Wynne (Calvert’s agent in Ferryland) wrote:

Now in the next place it may please your Honour to understand that touching this country, the summer time here is so fair, so warm and of so good a temperature, that it produceth many herbs and plants very wholesome, medicinable and delectable; many fruit trees of sundry kinds; many sorts of berries wholesome to eat and in measure most abundant, in so much as many sorts of birds and beasts are relieved with them in time of winter, and whereof with further experience I trust to find some for the turn of Dyers.

The same year, Nicholas Hoskins, a “gentleman” of the Colony, wrote to a “worthy friend”:

The wild fruit and berries are small pears, cherries, nuts, raspberries, strawberries, barberries, dewberries, whortleberries, with other, all good to eat.

So, in honour of Wynne, Hoskins and every other lover of free fruit, we’re wrapping the 2020 Great Colonial Cook Off up with a simple, yet delicious, wild berry tart. Since it’s raspberry season here at the Colony of Avalon, we’re going with them. But feel free to use whatever fruit (wild or otherwise) is in season where you live. We’re guessing a strawberry, cherry, peach or blueberry cream tart would be equally delicious!

This week’s recipe comes (once again) from Elizabeth Ayrton’s The Cookery of England: being a collection of recipes for traditional dishes of all kinds from the fifteenth century to the present day, with notes on their social and culinary background, first published in 1974. According to Ayerton, her recipe is based on one that dates back to the 17th century. In the original, the raspberries were heavily spiced and cooked in a thin-lidded puff-pastry pie. In Ayerton’s version (a la this 1672 recipe for an almond tart from The Queen Like Closet) the fruit filling is is set in an egg custard:

Ingredients

For the Crust:

  • 225 grams (8 oz) plain flour

  • Pinch of salt

  • 125 grams (4 oz) unsalted butter (cut into 1 inch squares)

  • 25 grams (1 oz) caster sugar

  • 1 egg yolk

  • 2 tablespoons ice-cold water

For the Filling

  • 900 grams (2 lbs) fresh or frozen raspberries (or fruit of your choice)

  • 175 grams (6 oz) caster sugar

  • 3 eggs

  • 1 tablespoon corn flour

  • 250 ml ( 1 cup) single cream

  • 1 tablespoon Rosewater OR a fruit liqueur of your choice e.g. Kirsh, Framboise, Peach Schnapps, etc.

Method

  • Sift flour and salt together into a mixing bowl

  • Cut butter into the flour until well coasted and in small pieces

  • Rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs

  • Stir in 25 grams (1 oz) of caster sugar

  • Mix the egg yolk with the cold water and stir into flour mixture

  • Mix to a firm dough, adding a little more water, if necessary

  • Knead lightly until smooth

  • Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes

  • Roll out pastry on a lightly floured board and line a 10 inch tart/flan pan

  • Chill again

  • Line crust with parchment paper of foil and add pie weights, beans, dried peas (whatever you have)

  • Bake blind in a 400F oven for 10-15 minutes

  • Remove paper/foil and pie weights/beans

  • Return to the oven for an additional 5 minutes

  • Remove from oven and cool

  • Fill the cooled pastry crust with raspberries

  • Sprinkle with 125 grams (4 oz) caster sugar

  • Beat eggs, remaining sugar (25 grams/1 oz) and cornflour together until almost white

  • Stir in cream and rosewater or fruit liqueur of your choice

  • Pour over raspberries

  • Bake in the centre of oven at 350F for 35-40 minutes or until custard is set

  • Serve hot or warm

NOTE: Be careful not to overcook this pie or else the custard will set solid (voice of experience here ;-)

There you have it. Remember, snap a photo of your Tartys of Raspberries (or whatever fruit you choose) and add it to the comments section of the recipe post on the Colony of Avalon’s Facebook page for a chance to win weekly and grand prizes. Good luck! We can’t wait to see what you create.

Jane SeversComment