FJG Pumpkin Week – Day 5, The Essex Pumpkin Tart

At the beginning of the week we promised to produce recipes which were both delicious and nutritious. Well, they have all certainly been delicious, border- line nutritious, perhaps with the exception of the healthy soup.

Today draws a close to the end of our pumpkin week, however, we still want to see any pictures of your attempts of recreating these fantastic recipes.  Any recommended tweaks and top tips you think our recipes need don’t hesitate to let us know.

Day 5 – The Essex Pumpkin Tart

In reality this is essentially a classic American pumpkin pie, however as we are not American and certainly wouldn’t consider the dish a pie (the word invokes steak and ale as opposed to a sweet cake). Thus, we have stayed true to our roots; with plenty of orange on display we are making the Essex pumpkin tart!
Ingredients

750g pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into chucks

350g sweet shortcrust pastry

Plain flour for dusting

140g caster sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp fresh nutmeg, grated

1 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs, beaten

25g butter, melted

175 ml condensed milk

1 tbsp icing sugar

Method

1 – Place the pumpkin into a large saucepan, cover with boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes. Once it is soft, drain and allow to cool.

2 – Heat the oven to 180°C. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use it to line a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Once you have done this it is important to let it chill for roughly 15 minutes. Then line the pastry with baking parchment and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and paper and continue to cook for 10 minutes until you achieve a slightly golden base and remove from the oven. Increase the heat to 220°C.

3 – Push the cooked pumpkin through a sieve into a bowl and puree.  A food processor is ideal or you can mash it thoroughly.  Put this to one side.

4 – In another bowl, combine all the dry ingredients except for half the cinnamon and icing sugar and mix in the beaten eggs, melted butter and condensed milk. Then add this to the puree and combine well. Pour the mixture into the tart and cook for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180°C and continue to bake for roughly 35 minutes until the filling is set.  Allow it to cool and dust with the remaining cinnamon powder and icing sugar and lovely jubbly, bish bash bosh, you have created yourself a classy Essex pumpkin tart, enjoy!

The FJG Foundation is our charity raising monies for small youth and children’s organisations within the local community.  It was established in 2012, and has a cookbook available for sale which is full of homemade recipes inspired, created and photographed by the staff.  All proceeds of the book go to FJG Foundation and they make a fantastic present/Christmas stocking filler for only £5 or indeed a donation.  Please email Penny Hepburn at PHepburn@fjg.co.uk to get your book today.