Manchester tart - recipe by James Martin

My mum's favourite pudding is a Manchester Tart.  She told me it reminds her of her school days as it was often a pudding they would serve at school.  Mum was coming to stay with us for a few days, and I had already promised her I would bake her a cake/pudding of her choice for Mother's Day.  Mum was coming to look after Boy Number 1 during the Easter holidays, so it was a perfect time to bake her a Manchester Tart.

 

I trawled the internet for a recipe, and after much deliberation I decided on this recipe James Martin's Manchester Tart by James Martin.  I have always found James' recipes reliable and tasty and I'm also a Saturday Kitchen fan! 

 

I did adapt the recipe slightly.  Firstly, the recipe says to use ready made shortcrust pastry.  Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to make my own.  I used the pastry recipe for Mary Berry's pecan pie from Mary's Baking Bible.  This is a pie that I have baked before, and I knew that the pastry recipe worked and would - hopefully - go well in this recipe!

 

Here is the baked pastry case.  I placed the loose bottomed flan tin containing the baked pastry case on top of an upturned glass and carefully loosened the ring and lowered it onto the worktop.  Luckily the pastry case stayed intact as I did so!

 

The next job was to fill the pastry case with raspberry jam and dessicated coconut.  I must admit I'm not a fan of coconut, but I hoped this recipe would convert me!

Next, James instructs you to sprinkle over 150g fresh raspberries.  This is where I diverted from the recipe a little, as mum told me that she liked fresh sliced banana in her tart!  So I decided to alternate circles of banana and fresh raspberries.

It was almost a shame that the fresh fruit was going to be covered up with the custard filling, as it looked quite tempting and pretty!

The next part of the recipe was to make the custard filling.  I absolutely adore custard, especially freshly made vanilla custard, and I was looking forward to this part very much! 

The making of the custard was very straightforward, and a quick taste test revealed that it was indeed very delicious!  The hot custard was transferred to a clean bowl and then (I was unsure about this bit) I dusted the top of the custard with 2tbsp icing sugar to prevent a skin forming and left it to cool.  This tip did seem to work, although the top of the custard cracked quite a bit and the top bit went quite watery so I don't know if I would do this again next time I make custard. 

Once the custard had cooled in the fridge it was time to whip up a large amount of double cream and mix this into the custard mixture.  I was also unsure about this part, as I'm not a huge fan of double cream and I didn't want to spoil the lovely custard mixture!  

The tart filling was then poured into the pastry case and I levelled this as best as I could.  It did taste lovely - and there was quite a bit left over too - bonus!

I had pre-toasted the remaining 3tbsp of the dessicated coconut in a dry frying pan and once this had cooled I sprinkled this over the top of the tart.  Mum had arrived by now and was looking forward to trying a slice!

To finish off the tart, I simply placed a little pile of raspberries into the centre of the tart and let it rest in the fridge until we were ready to eat it for pudding after our tea.

And the verdict?  It was good, but next time I make it I will probably leave out the double cream, as I really don't think it needed it and I thought the cream diluted the lovely vanilla custard flavour.  I was also a little disappointed as the tart didn't set as I expected (see picture below) and, as you can see, it was a bit sloppy.  I think this may be because I may have under-whipped the cream.  My homemade pastry was also a little disappointing, it was quite hard and difficult to cut through - perhaps I rollled the pastry a little too thin?

Having said all of the above, my mum said she loved this tart and said it was extra special.  This was evidenced as husband and I went out for dinner the next night, came home and a very large portion had mysteriously disappeared from the fridge!  The tart was also a hit with husband, who said that the filling was really good. 

This tart was quite time consuming to make, and although I was a little disappointed with the end result, my mum certainly wasn't, and that's all that matters, as this tart was made for her!