Recipe for Michaelmas: Apple Curd Tart 

This simple but delicious recipe is best served warm, as most egg mixtures are. The better flavoured the apples, the better the tart. You need either a large deep flan tin (11in/28cm across and 2in/5cm deep) or 2 normal sized ones (9in/23cm across and 1in/2.5cm deep). A Kenwood mixer or other processor is useful for this quantity of pastry.

For the pastry 

12oz/35og plain flour

a pinch of salt

6oz/175g butter or butter and lard

3-6 Tbsp cold water 

Put the flour and salt in the bowl of the Kenwood, add the fat cut into pieces and mix at speed until it looks like bread crumbs. Turn the speed down and add just enough water to bring the crumbs into a dough. Switch off, remove the dough and roll out onto a floured board. Butter the tins and line them with the pastry. 

For the Filling: 

8oz/225g butter

8oz/225g granulated sugar 

4 cooking apples, peeled, cored and grated

4 eggs, lightly beaten 

Preheat the oven to Gas 6/400F/200C.

Melt the butter and sugar together in a saucepan. Remove from the heat, mix in the grated apple and the beaten eggs.

Tip it all into the pastry case (no pre-baking necessary) and bake for 30-45 minutes (the shorter time for 9in/23cm tins, the longer for 11in/28cm one), until the filling is set.