Jeff’s Redcurrant Tart

Jeff Bryant made this delicious tart especially for us with fresh redcurrants from his garden in Queenstown.

Serves 10 approximately

½ cup chopped walnuts (or hazelnuts/almonds) toasted 1 tbsp white or Demerara sugar 150g (5oz) butter 225g (8oz) sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla 165g (6oz) self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 450g (1lb) of fruit (most other fruit could be substituted for the red currants)

Mix chopped, toasted nuts with first quantity of sugar and put aside.

Melt the butter in microwave bowl or in pot until just soft/liquid.

Add the cup of sugar, the eggs and vanilla and beat recklessly until blended. Shake in the flour and baking powder and mix in with half the nut and sugar mix.

Spread the cake batter evenly in a buttered or sprayed 23-25 cm round (loose bottomed) cake tin.

The mixture raises as it cooks.

Place fruit (peeled/stoned/hulled whatever) over the mixture, press some in lightly into the base first, and then sprinkle over the rest of the sugar and nut mix.

Bake at 180C/350F/Mark 4 for about 40 minutes until cake has risen around the fruit and browned lightly.

Serve warm (if as a dessert) with an air of insouciance and a dollop of cream!