Recipes

An old favourite (I first published the recipe in 1991) that I have recently revived to the considerable approval of those gathered around the table. It’s rich and sticky and a little oozy in the centre, packed to the hilt with nuts. Serve just as it is, with cream or with icecream, or with something fruity to cut through the decadence. I partnered it with pears poached in a light syrup when we last ate it. Excellent.

Kitchen Notes:

1. those nuts? the key is to use plenty of them. You could opt for either walnuts or hazelnuts alone, always a winner, but a mix of different nuts is good as well. A gathering of walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pinenuts works very nicely. Add peanuts or cashew nuts in moderation only.

2. A rich buttery pastry like this can be a pain to handle. I like this technique of chilling the rolled-out pastry before lining the tart tin with it, but if you chill it for too long it will be way too rigid to mould without tearing so let it come back almost to room temperature. The good news is that if it does break and tear you can totally get away with patching it into place in the tin and no-one will be any the wiser.

Serves 10

For the pastry:

200g plain flour

100g lightly salted butter, chilled and diced

30g sifted icing sugar

1 medium egg

1 egg yolk

For the filling:

200g light muscovado sugar

200g lightly salted butter

4 tablespoons double cream

30g plain flour

250g nuts, roughly chopped

Pastry: rub the butter into the flour until it forms fine crumbs. Stir in the icing sugar, then add the egg and yolk. Cut them into the flour with a table knife, then use your hands to bring the mixture together into a ball. Knead briefly to smooth out. Roll out thinly between two sheets of baking parchment to form a circle large enough to line a 23 cm tart tin with removable base. Chill the pastry, still sandwiched between the sheets of parchment, for half an hour. Whilst you have the parchment around, line the base of the tin and grease the sides with a little extra butter.

Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan 170/Gas 5. Line the tart tin with the pastry. Prick the base all over with a fork. Gently press one of the sheets of parchment into the lined tin and fill with baking beans. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove the beans and parchment. Return to the oven for 5 minutes to dry out.

Meanwhile make the filling. Put sugar and butter into a saucepan large eenough to take all the filling ingredients with room to spare. Stir over a moderate heat until evenly mixed. As soon as it starts to boil, beat in the cream and the flour. Stir in the nuts and bring back to the boil, then take off the heat. Pour into the pastry case and return to the oven for 12 minutes. Take out of the oven very carefully so as not to spill the filling. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.