Brandied custard and fruit mince tart, 500 posts and a giveaway

Have you ever seen a recipe and built up high hopes around it, and literally itched to make it, then when you finally do, it falls short of your expectations?

This is exactly what happened to me when I made Jocelyn Hancock's Brandied Custard and Raisin Tart, from p22 of Brisbane News (December 2-8, 2009). I am not blaming Jocelyn or the recipe - it's just that (a) I found this tart too eggy for my liking (and I am a fan of egg custard); and (b) I used a smaller pie tin than recommended, which resulted in the wrong ratio of fruit to custard in the finished tart, making it a little "meh" in my view.

My tart shell would not take all of the custard, and as I did not reduce the amount of fruit proportionately, I ended up with a tart filled with lots of fruit and with a thin custard shell on top:



I substituted the brandied raisins for fruit mince, which could have worked well if the custard component of the tart had turned out.

If you are a custard tart fan and would like to try this out, the recipe is as follows:

28cm baked shortcrust pie shell (bought or home made)
1 1/2 cups raisins
180ml brandy
zest of 1/2 an orange
2 egg yolks
3 eggs
75g sugar
375ml whipping cream
nutmeg for sprinkling on top

Put the raisins and 160ml of brandy in a small bowl and allow the fruit to soak overnight.

Next day, preheat your oven to 165 degrees Celsius. Put the zest, yolks, eggs, sugar and cream into a large bowl and mix well. Stir through the remaining 20ml brandy.

Cover the base of the pie shell with the raisin mixture, then pour the custard mixture on top. Sprinkle some nutmeg on top of the custard, and place the tart in the oven to bake for 40-50 minutes or until set. Remove the tart from the oven and allow it to cool. Chill before serving.

I have just realised that this is my 500th post - I can hardly believe it, but it is true.

To celebrate the occasion, I am going to introduce a Laws of the Kitchen first - a giveaway. I have bought a copy of The Australian Women's Weekly Little Pies and Cakes to give away:

Just like this blog, this book is a little bit savoury and a little bit sweet - hopefully something for everyone.

If you'd like to win this book, just leave a comment on this post. I will then use a random number generator to generate a number, and if the number of your comment matches that number, you win the book! It doesn't matter where you are from - for this celebration, I will mail anywhere in the world that has a postal service (although I can't guarantee that it will actually get there - the mail can be mysterious). If you don't have a blog, you will need to leave your email address with your comment so that I have some way of contacting you if you win.

Entries close at 6am Australian Eastern Standard Time on 27 January 2010, and the winner will be announced on this blog by midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time on the same date. Good luck!