The Comfort Chronicles

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The Comfort Chronicles
The Comfort Chronicles
#116 A Much needed Comfort Classic - Custard Tart

#116 A Much needed Comfort Classic - Custard Tart

... and some very fun kitchen developments.

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Stephi Blackwell
Nov 10, 2024
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The Comfort Chronicles
The Comfort Chronicles
#116 A Much needed Comfort Classic - Custard Tart
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Ok, so, the ‘low-key lurgy’ escalated. I refuse to refer to it as properly ill, I’m a tough cookie, I don’t get felled by things. But I should probably accept that there has been a bug in the system, and thus I have been un peut felled. Grim. The muted symptoms that started last week became ANGRY and loud at the weekend. My nose developed a substantial leak, and I started to bark louder than Olive. My neck and shoulders were (still are) stiffer than the wood now laid in the kitchen/dining room (very lovely by the way), and I’ve spent the majority of the week feeling slightly spaced out with tiredness. Also, have lost my sense of taste which is potentially the most hateful symptom of all.

A normal human being would have considered this a good opportunity to reside on the sofa with a blanket, tea, biscuits maybe. I’m not normal. And so, I have basically powered through like nothing is amiss. Foolish. It’s Thursday as I write this now, and I think I’ve started to turn a corner; I’m feeling vaguely human again… but I’m off to the dentist this afternoon to have a tooth drilled and refilled - cue several hours of a numb mouth and dribbling. Cute.

In better news, I’m happy to admit that I’ve made some quite groundbreaking discoveries this week. Firstly, that you can fit an inordinate amount cardboard into a wheelie bin with meticulous folding, close packing, brute force and a spot of ‘getting in the bin and hopping up and down’ to compress everything. My second realisation is that Tilda (I’m talking rice pouches) are stingy with their quantities, meanwhile Merchant Gourmet are generous – to clarify, Tilda seem to barely live up to the 250g they claim to weigh, whilst MG give you an extra 5g or so. Good to know. (I seriously need to get a life, I KNOW). And finally, I have learnt that renovating areas of your house results in an (unhealthy) addiction to all things ‘interiors’. Not only do I want various sparkly new things to furnish our equally sparkly new room, but I also want to turn the rest of the house upside down and give it a face lift too. Oh and, having watched the master’s at work, I’m thinking I can probably do it all myself, pass me a hammer and I’m all set, right? This is neither feasible nor affordable but I’m overlooking the details and wasting many hours of my life buried in homeware websites/articles. White company, Cotswold co. Loaf, Oliver Bonas, DUSK and the remainder of my search history… call me.

I must also tell you about my very happy (solo again) trip to Waitrose last week. I think I might be becoming a pro at this by the way, it takes an exorbitant amount of energy, and my anxiety levels are peaking for the duration, but I seem to be mastering it. Am I an actual adult? Absolutely not. Anyway, one of my favourite members of staff had been off for several weeks. Naturally, I assumed various reasons for his absence (all incorrect I might add) and became increasingly worried with each passing week. But last week, HE WAS BACK… fighting fit after a short bout of illness and I was truly SO delighted to see him (might have got a bit excited, might have hugged him - awkward).

Other pleasing things:

A lovely read: this newsletter by Rosie Kellet about a couple doing magical things with food on their organic farm (The Lazy Olive) in Tuscany - they sound like lovely, genuine, kind people with huge passion and talent for what they do - the newsletter is a thoroughly heartwarming read. Lovely.

To watch: The Day of The Jackal on SKY - ok, this is INTENSE. Prepare to be fuelled with adrenaline throughout and expect other ‘life stuff’ to be put on hold for a few days whilst you become totally obsessed, and binge watch all available episodes. I’m not sure ‘enjoyment’ or ‘comfort’ would be words I’d associate with this one but it’s compelling, gripping, and certainly an excellent distraction from anything else you might have to think or worry about. As with Killing Eve, I’m also (disconcertingly) cheering for the assassin. On a lighter note, as ever, Attenborough’s new series, Asia, looks exceptional. I saw a snippet from episode one on Gogglebox about Mudskippers and I now want to BE a Mudskipper - these guys have SKILLS!

People: Vito and Sarah on Strictly - both bundles of energy, joy, love, obviously insane talent too. They also share my obsession for food, so I think we’d all be best friends! Side note - the pair shared an insta vid about Italian biscuits and I now feel an urgent need to try a ‘Mulino Bianco Baiocchi’ - can anyone confirm whether they’re any good?

Nature’s masterpiece: swathes of red, orange and yellow leaves adorning the trees - also extremely satisfying to shuffle through large leafy mounds on the pavements - kicking them as you go.

OK, now let’s talk kitchen updates:

  • You may have seen on my Insta that we have floor. This is excellent news because a) we’re no longer padding through dust each time we venture into the kitchen AND, b) (quite importantly), we LOVE it. It’s funny with these things, you do all your due diligence before hand – bring home samples, look at them in various lights, and offer them up to other samples e.g. cupboard doors – you finally make your selection and you’re fairly confident with it. But you can never be 100% sure until it’s fitted, can you? This element of uncertainty is unbearably unnerving. So, we’re both delighted (and relieved) with how it looks! (As I said last week, it was from a local supplier called Oak Warehouse, and we opted for a hard wood in light oak).

    Reluctant to step foot in here because obv can't let such a perfect thing get dirty.

  • Paul has also fitted the cornices/pelmets to the upper cupboards as well as the decorative plinths underneath. This required a lot of cups of tea, concentration, measuring, and ultimately some very precise cutting with a menacing-looking, saw-y machine (it genuinely looked like it might chop a few arms off if I got too close). The skill involved here blew.my.mind, everything fits together so neatly, it’s like ‘spot the join’… very clever, very perfect - I’m now stroking these bits as well as the sink.

    1. Some serious joinery skills demonstrated here. 2. Baffled by how different the cabinet colour looks in different lights. 3. Can we take a minute to marvel at the plastering too - JUST SO SMOOTH!
  • Work tops - we have them too! And they’re STUNNING*, almost too pretty - can I actually use these surfaces? It feels wrong to get them dirty. Anyway, about the work tops; they’re from a place called Presitge granite and marble recommended to us by a friend. Once again, we have nothing but incredible things to say about these guys, such friendly, knowledgeable staff, a brilliant service, really good value, and their stuff is seriously high quality (and beautiful - more stroking). We went with “Itastone Statuario Quartz (with a 30mm thickness). It has a delicate grey vein on a white background - so elegant. Can you be jealous of your worktops’ style? I’m jealous!
    *
    (is it especially obnoxious to hear someone being quite so effusive about something that is theirs? If so, huge apologies - I’m in my ‘new-kitchen-honeymoon-period’ - it won’t last that much longer, I promise!!).

    Work top GOALS...

Now, there is a slight caveat to all this fun news… Paul is now off on holiday for a couple of weeks, thus things are going to stall for a short period. That being said, the plumber is due to come and connect the tap/sink-y stuff along with the radiators next week, and Mum and I need to start looking at paint swatches and choose a suitable colour ready for the decorating to start in the next few weeks. We also need to get some tiles and we’ve been told we can start cleaning out some of the cupboards, even start moving a few things back into them – the fun never stops here! The room is going to largely remain inoperable during this little period but it’s good to think we can start transitioning back into the space.

I said last week that I thought I’d lost my baking bug… I still can’t imagine ACTUALLY baking in this space (it’s just too perfect to use!) but I’ve realised how much I need my baking fix again... freshly baked bread, a chocolate cake layered with fruity bits, cream, more chocolate - yes please. Talking of bakes… I’m sharing another of my absolute comfort favourites this week, it’s a true classic that you can serve up at any time of year - a velvety rich, custard tart. Gawd, I could really go a slice of this right now. More on that good stuff below.

OK, I think that’s your lot for another week… I will be back to give you more deets next week (I think it’s time we talked about appliances, don’t you? Thrilling stuff to come!). In the meantime, I hope you’re all doing ok, and thank you again for being here for me during this project, it genuinely wouldn’t have been as enjoyable or exciting without your support.

Big, huge, love!

Steph X X X

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Custard tart

A British custard tart has royal status in dessert world, right? It’s defiantly simple and unassuming, yet full of elegance and charm. A crisp, shortcrust pastry encases rich, velvety, vanilla custard, it’s crowned with a hefty veil of nutmeg and cooked until ‘wobbly’ and just set.

It can be eaten year-round (in my opinion), it’s indiscriminate, and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. I’m not a pastry lover or a tart lover for that matter and yet I swear I could eat all of this in one sitting. Flawless.

I’ve made this tart countless times now, tweaking things here and there as I go… my preferences are as follows:

  • For this tart, I like to use my foolproof biscuitty, almond pastry dough in favour of something shorter and richer, and I blind bake it until it’s golden and crisp - we need a relatively sturdy vessel to hold the liquid here. It also includes a touch of baking powder - this isn’t for lift as such but gives the baked pastry a slightly lighter texture.

  • My custard is heavy on egg yolks for richness (freeze the whites for a Xmas pavlova!!) and, of course, some good quality vanilla bean paste. I then opt for whipping cream as the dairy element - it has a slightly lower fat content than double cream and yields a silkier custard that LITERALLY melts in the mouth - it is possible to almost replicate this with a combination of double cream and milk (which I suggest below) but I still prefer the set produced with whipping cream alone.

  • Freshly grated nutmeg on top is non-negotiable… never skip it.

  • The bake is the slightly tricky bit. Timings can vary greatly based on a number of parameters; the goal is to take the tart out of the oven when it is just set which is not always the easiest thing to gauge. Thus, it (annoyingly) comes down to intuition, patience or, if you’re ok about stabbing things - probing the centre to check it’s reached around 80C. In terms of visual cues, you're looking for a decent wobble in the centre - not flowy, not firm, but jiggly (just right).

  • The only thing I’m prepared to faff with here is the type of sugar I use - at this time of year, it’s quite nice to opt for a brown sugar for more of a caramel flavour. I find that less refined sugars are a bit less enthusiastic about dissolving into the liquids, which can create a *slightly* grainy custard, however, I suggest a slightly different method to mitigate this. AND, if there are still a couple of pesky undissolved sugar granules lurking, they’re barely discernible once baked, so I’m prepared to overlook them in favour of the warming, caramelised flavour.

OK, enough chat… let’s BAKE!

Crunchy biscuitty case, SILKY smooth custard - perfection.
Version made with soft LIGHT brown sugar...
Version made with Panela sugar - SUPER CARAMEL-Y - omitted the nutmeg here - a sin, I know - and tried a brûlée top - actually lush, but nutmeg always wins for me!

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