Rhubarb Tart

So, with Easter fast approaching a lot of chocolate goodies will be making their way into homes around the country. Unusual as it may sound, I have actually never been a great fan of chocolate. I tend to suffer from migraines and so, as a rule, I try to avoid any 'triggers' that may encourage an attack. Chocolate, or the over-consumption of it, can often lead to few days of suffering so steering clear of it has always been advisable for me. I would certainly appreciate a slice of a luscious chocolate cake every so often, but as treats go, if given the choice between a packet of crisps or a bar of chocolate, the crisps will win every time.

Over the Easter holidays many of us will welcome some visits from family or friends. A notion that I love, but rarely do, is to have something made in advance, tucked away in the freezer which is ready to take out at a moments notice. Any type of fruit tart or pie freezes beautifully and with a few minutes added to its cooking time, the frozen tart will cook perfectly. The best woman, that I know, to make pastry is my mother in law, Liz. Her tarts and pies are always flawless and this is her recipe for pastry. I wouldn't be the best pastry maker, but I find simply whizzing the ingredients in a food processor can result in a very easy and quick pastry. As with most of my dishes I use butter for the pastry but feel free to use margarine, if you prefer. Most fruits work well in tarts or pies but rhubarb is now in full season and some fresh young rhubarb is delicious as part of this recipe. The rhubarb will produce quite a bit of juice so a tablespoon of cornflour will help to thicken the syrup as the tart is cooking. I still place a tray on the bottom rack, under the tart as it cooks, just in case any of the sugary syrup oozes out. The quantities in this recipe are for two tarts, so one for now and one as an 'emergency' tart for the freezer.

Rhubarb Tart

Makes 2 tarts
Ingredients

Pastry
450g (1lb) white flour
25g (1oz) icing sugar
225g (8 ozs)butter, cold and diced
2 tbsp cold water

Filling
900g (2 lbs) rhubarb
300g (10oz) caster sugar
1 tbsp cornflour

egg wash-made with one beaten egg and a dash of milk
soft brown sugar for sprinkling
whipped cream, for serving

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C(fan)/gas mark 6.
2. First, make the pastry. Sieve the flour and the icing sugar into a bowl. Rub in the butter then gradually add the water and bring the pastry together in a ball. If it's a little stiff, add a few more splashes of cold water if necessary. Turn out onto a piece of floured greaseproof paper, flatten into a round wrap and chill. This pastry needs to be chilled for at least an hour.
3. Divide the pastry in two. To make the tarts, roll out the pastry 1/8 inch (3mm) thick approx., and use about 2/3 of each ball to line a suitable tart tin. Divide the rhubarb between the two tarts, sprinkle with sugar and sprinkle over the cornflour.
4. Cover with a lid of pastry, seal edges and brush with the egg wash. Bake in the preheated oven, for approx. 45 minutes. Serve sprinkled lightly with soft brown sugar and softly whipped cream.

In other news - I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone who dropped in nappies to me for the Nappies for Belarus Appeal. I was delighted last week to hand over 7,000 nappies to Jim Kavanagh, the gentleman driving to Belarus. In total he has collected over 32,000 nappies nationwide. There is certainly a lot of good will out there!!  

Also, I'm heading up to the Craig Doyle Live Show tomorrow evening {Tuesday}. On the show, he will be interviewing Phil Vickery, winner of Celebrity Masterchef UK, and they had asked for some food bloggers to join the audience. Earlier today I was contacted by a very lovely lady, from their production team, and it turns out that myself and two other bloggers will be having a few words {from the audience} with Craig!