Egg Custard Tart

Baked Egg Custard Tart

This is a Mrs Beeton recipe that I have tweaked a bit! I used spelt flour instead of white and increased the ingredients in the custard as my dish has quite high sides and I needed to fill it.

12 fl oz milk (I used semi skimmed)

2 oz caster sugar

3 eggs

grated nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Short Crust Pastry

4 oz spelt flour

1\4 teaspoon salt

2 oz butter

Good pinch of nutmeg

Water for binding

You will need an 18cm / 7 inch flan ring. Pre heat the oven to 190 degrees / gas 5

To make the pastry

Put the flour and salt into a bowl then rub in the butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the nutmeg (I used about 1/4 tsp but I love nutmeg) Add enough cold water to make a stiff dough, then press the dough together and roll out on a floured surface. Line the tin with the pastry and place on a baking sheet. Put a piece of baking parchment over the pastry and fill with baking beans. Bake blind for 10 min, then remove the beans and parchment and bake for another 5 min.

While the pastry is blind baking make the custard.

Put the eggs and caster sugar into a bowl with the vanilla extract and mix really well. Put the milk in a saucepan and bring to just below boiling point, then stir in the scalded milk to the egg mixture. Strain the mixture, using a sieve, into the pastry case and sprinkle the top with nutmeg. Bake for 10 minutes.

Lower the oven temperature to 150 degrees / gas 2 and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes or until the custard is just set. Serve hot or cold. Serves 6-8

This is a variation on an ‘allrecipes’ recipe. The original recipe had pecan nuts in but I left these out as I just wanted a lemon drizzle, and I added some lemon juice to the sponge mix as it looked rather dry. The icing sugar in the sponge makes a really light cake and enough for about 14 slices.

#baking