Rum and Raisin Tart

I've done a couple of posts recently about recipes from my mum. Today it's dad's turn. This isn't exactly a recipe from him, but a recipe for him. He's always had a bit of love of rum and raisin ice-cream but, being January, I thought it was still a little early to get the ice cream maker out. So I decided to look for a warmer recipe, where I could combine these two ingredients, and Jamie's Great Britain came to hand. I've been wanting to make his Ecclefechan Tart for ages now (a whisky pastry with a dried fruit, black treacle and sponge-type filling) and I thought it would be the perfect base to make a few rum and raison flavoured adaptations.

So, I swapped whisky for rum in the pastry and used raisins alone, instead of a mixture of dried fruits in the filling. I also removed the stem ginger from the  raisin filling and added a bit of ground cinnamon to the sponge-type top - Jamie combined his stem ginger and orange zest with the raisins, whereas I decided to mix my cinnamon and orange zest into my sponge mix. 

One thing I'm not sure about is that Jamie didn't use any flour in his sponge (that's why I keep calling it sponge-type, as I'm not really sure what it's called when you effectively make a sponge but leave out the flour), but I added a couple of tablespoons of flour to stabilise it - this may have only been necessary because I over whisked my sugar/butter/egg mix, so if your's doesn't separate, I'm sure you can leave out the flour.

Mine also looks a little different to Jamie's as I had the wrong shaped tin, so my sponge batter was too thick, not leaving enough room for the raisins to peep through. Equally, this resulted in quite a nice tri-layer tart with the rum pastry, black treacle raisins and citrus and cinnamon spiced sponge.

So after all that explaining, here's the recipe (adapted from Jamie's Great Britain):

Ingredients:

Pastry

250g plain flour

125 unsalted, cubed, cold butter

Pinch of salt

50ml rum

Filling

150g room temperature butter

150g light soft brown sugar

150ml double cream

3 large eggs

1 heaped tbsp black treacle

300g raisins

Zest of 1 orange

1tsp cinnamon

(a couple of tbsp flour - see above)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and grease a 25cm loose bottomed tart tin.
2. Rub together pastry ingredients, except rum, until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the rum and push it together, but don't overwork it.
4. Leave it to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes, then roll out to about 3mm thick and line the tart case with it.
5. Prick the base with a fork, and blind bake (cover with greaseproof and fill with baking beans or uncooked rice) for 10 minutes.
6. Remove parchment and beans and return to the oven for another 5 mins.
7. Spread treacle onto the base once it's out of the oven, then pour the raisins on top.
8. Make the sponge/batter by whisking together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs (I added a little flour here as mine had split, but that may not be necessary - I fear I may have over-whisked it!), finally stir the cream, zest and cinnamon through the mixture.
9. Pour this mix into the tart case (over the raisins) and shake it a little to make the layers combine a little.
10. Cook for 30 minutes until golden.

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